Watched The Giant Claw [1957] recently. Standard 50's monster gone bad film of that time period. An engineer was up in northern Canada booming and zooming around in a jet fighter doing some experiments when he tangles with a giant thunderbird the size of a battleship. Things get unhinged from there and lots of guys that encounter the t-bird in aircraft are not so lucky and are killed by it. The engineer and his main squeeze attempt to fly south but are knocked down by creature. They survive and are helped by an apple jack swilling Quebecois whom is Mr. stereotype. Our heroes make it back to D.C. eventually and hook up with some air force brass and a nerd. The brass are frustrated that nothing they through at the creature works. After some study, the nerd [called Von Neumann - of course] discovers that the bird is sporting an anti-matter shield and is invincible. The bird then starts kicking some world wide ass and things are looking really glum. The engineer gets to work and after being pestered to eat and rest by the main squeeze, he invents a contraption to lower the birds shields on the sly. They dig out an old B-25 from mothballs for "maneuverability" with the brass flying it. The engineer, von Neumann and the squeeze climb aboard to and work the invention out of the tail guns of the old bomber. The shields are lowered and then the brass whip the Mitchell around and hammer the bird. It dies and the world is saved.
Guess that is more a summary then a critique. Not and Oscar winner but I'm glad I watched it. The biggest disappointment was the bird itself - it looked a little strange.
One goofy looking bird isn't it? As a 1950's sci-fi-flic, I've seen it several times. Interestingly, the principle stars, Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday and possibly Morris Ankrum and Robert (Inspector Henderson from The Adventures of Superman) Shayne, appeared at a premiere of the movie and none of them had seen the 'bird' up until then. When it made it's appearance the audience went crazy with laughter and gave it the raspberry, causing the actors to sink low into their seats and try to hatch a plan to get out of the theatre unnoticed.
