The Giant Claw Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

The Giant Claw Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 10, 2021

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as a part of Cold War Creatures: Four Films from Sam Katzman.

Sam Katzman's name may frankly not be held in the same general esteem as some other famous Golden Era producers like David O. Selznick or Adolph Zukor, but for sheer number of films produced and perhaps especially in cost to profit ratio, Katzman might eclipse more ostensible luminaries than you might expect. While Zukor, as the head of Paramount Pictures, got literally hundreds of "presents" credits, his actual producing credits (according to the IMDb) number fewer than a hundred, and Selznick logs in with even fewer than that. Of course both Selznick and Zukor tended to enjoy much more fulsome budgets and more glittering marquee stars than Katzman, a hardscrabble guy who started working in the film industry when he was barely a teenager, and who then climbed the ranks to work at a number of studios, including "poverty row" centers like Monogram, but also 20th Century Fox, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Columbia, ending up with (again according to the IMDb) 239 credits as producer. The four Katzman produced efforts Arrow Video has aggregated in this appealing collection may arguably not be from Hollywood's "real" Golden Era, with, as the title of the collection may hint at, these films all emanating a mid- fifties ambience that sought to attract younger viewers in particular away from the hypnotizing influence of that confounded television invention, often courtesy of plots that included science fiction and/or horror.

Let's just get the elephant, or at least the Big Bird, in the room out of the way right off the bat: the "monster" in this monster movie, one who is the "owner" of the title's giant claw, is without a doubt one of the most hilariously atrocious beasts to ever be created by special effects wizards (?) in the entire history of film. For those who doubt this sweeping generalization, I refer you simply to the third screenshot accompanying this review, a shot which doesn't even take in the entirety of this creature's being. Because this particular Big Bird is so laughable, that has understandably led a lot of people to completely throw out the baby with the bath water, so to speak, with regard to the rest of The Giant Claw. While the film is certainly no forgotten masterpiece, and may not in fact even be the most enjoyable film in Arrow's collection of Katzman outings, it has a certain lunatic allure that may recommend it to a certain demographic.

Test pilot Mitch MacAfee (Jeff Morrow) has a close encounter with a UFO at the North Pole which initially lands him in hot water with his superiors, since they can't find any trace of it on radar, until another flight encounters the same issue, with some tragic results. Accompanied by mathematician Sally Caldwell (Mara Corday), MacAfee sets off on a flight to New York, but on the way, that plane is attacked, with a crash near the Canadian border ensuing. MacAfee and Caldwell soon team up with Pierre Broussard (Lou Merrill), who himself has seen this so-called UFO, and identifies it as a mythical bird monster. This thesis is understandably met with some skepticism until a bunch of other flights are brought down by the beast, at which point everyone starts taking everything very seriously, and it turns out the bird is not in fact mythical, but extraterrestrial, equipped with a kind of anti-radar mechanism that makes it impervious to being attacked traditionally. Can American ingenuity and/or nuclear power save the day? What do you think?

The Giant Claw is just flat out silly a lot of the time, and it probably can't be helped that the Big Bird just comes off as unbelievably funny, thereby completely deflating any sense of menace. That said, the film actually offers some reasonably well done performances, and it's especially nice to say Corday playing a woman with some scientific expertise, certainly not something that was de rigeur in this era of science fictio and/or horror.

The Giant Claw Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Giant Claw is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Arrow actually provides two insert booklets with this release, but there's very little information granted about the transfer, other than that "restored masters were produced by Sony Pictures". Of course Sony has long been one of the more reliable curators of even its less well known catalog, and this presentation, along with The Werewolf, is one of the standouts in the Katzman set. Detail levels are commendable throughout, and even with a slight downturn in some of the "effects" shots featuring the ridiculous Big Bird, fine detail is frequently excellent as well (take a look at those flyaway hairs on the bird's head in screenshot 3). There's some stock footage on hand here which looks a bit rough, but on the whole there's no appreciable damage to report, with good consistent looking contrast and an organically resolved grain field.

The Giant Claw Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Giant Claw features a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track which offers nice fidelity throughout, capably supporting the film's dialogue (which is at times about as ridiculous as the Big Bird) and sound effects. Once again the score looks like it was fashioned out of stock library cues, but I noticed no huge differentiations in fidelity or even hall ambience. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Giant Claw Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction by Kim Newman (HD; 12:27) can be accessed under the Play Menu. The disc is authored to move on automatically to the feature after the introduction (there's an option to simply play the feature without the introduction as well).


• Commentary by Emma Westwood and Cerise Howard


• Family Endangered (HD; 12:51) is another interesting visual essay included in this set, this one by Mike White which looks at how Cold War paranoia often suffuses Sam Katzman's "monster movies".


• Super 8 Version (HD; 6:29)


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:03)


• Image Gallery (HD)

The Giant Claw Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Yes, The Giant Claw simply cant escape the patent absurdity of its malevolent main monster, but that may only give this film added charm for certain jaded audience types (of which I should probably admit I'm a charter member). This has very nice looking video for the most part, and audio is also fine. As is usually the case with Arrow's releases, the supplements are also very well done, for those who are considering making a purchase.