If you’re still agonizing over your Thanksgiving holiday viewing, let me lay this on your sideboard:  Fred F. Sears’ THE GIANT CLAW (1957) – the other other white meat!

You’re not likely to hear anyone else ever say these words again, but THE GIANT CLAW is perfection.  It’s the wild story of a giant bird of prey, an “overgrown buzzard,” who establishes an orbit around North America and begins taking down military planes, commercial flights and transglobal airliners like they were so much pecking corn.  And don’t even think about parachuting to safety…

… because this bird’s got all the angles covered.  And for you teenagers out there who think this “fantastic orgy of destruction” is just one big goof as you race around in your hot rods shouting “23 Skidoo!” at all the squares, well keep in mind that he who laughs last…

… is the Giant Claw!  When he’s finished with you, you won’t think it’s too ginchy. Dig?

Like most of the later films of Fred F. Sears (EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS, THE WEREWOLF, THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED), the Sam Katzman-produced THE GIANT CLAW keeps serving it up until you’re ready to blow.  A heavily pomaded Jeff Morrow (THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US) and toothy Mara Corday (TARANTULA) take the point as civilian contractors who lead a reluctant military high command on a “wild goose chase” (and how!) after a winged predator of mythic proportions (“If you see this big bird, it’s a sign that you’re gonna die.  Real soon.”), who appears to be both invisible to radar and immune to “guns… cannons… rockets.”  Fifties sci-fi stalwart Morris Ankrum turns up wearing the four-star general uniform he probably kept in the trunk of his car to help our heroes track the elusive flapper to its nest in Canada… where eggs the size of Volkswagen Beatles are about to hatch and unleash more Giant Claws upon the world.

THE GIANT CLAW got slapped with the reputation for being a “turkey” long ago but it’s surprisingly good and deucedly entertaining.  The dialogue is a bit pretentious (characters tend to emphasize important plot points by saying them three times, reiterating what they just articulated in slightly different form, rephrasing their original point in order to drive home the message) but the script by Paul Gangelin (THE MAD GHOUL) and Samuel Newman (INVISIBLE INVADERS) understands its essential ridiculousness.  Here’s a sample of dialogue spoken by two Air Force flyers whose squadron is charged with taking down the monster…

PILOT 1

I’ve seen some mighty big chickenhawks back on the farm but, man, this baby takes the cake.

PILOT 2

Honest to Pete, I’ll never call my mother-in-law an old crow again.

And then they both get eaten!*

THE GIANT CLAW concludes explosively in the skies above Manhattan (after both the Empire State Building and the United Nations are leveled) as the protagonists – armed with cutting edge scientific machinery, coffee and sandwiches – try a very complicated and unorthodox approach to ankling the big bird.  Does their desperate bid for the restoration of order work?  Well… you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Trust me on this – THE GIANT CLAW is the break-out Thanksgiving perennial waiting to be rediscovered. 

*Other cherished dialogue nuggests include “It’s good applejack.  I make-a-myself.  Fine for de snake bite” and “Get me my pants, would you General?”