AKA: The Mark of the Claw

Version: Video

Length: Approx. 75 minutes

Rated: <unknown>

Main Cast: Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Morris Ankrum, Louis Merrill, Edgar Barrier, Robert Shayne.

The Giant Claw

Ugh! What a b-movie! Amazingly, it has some decent acting and the lines aren’t very cheesy.

It begins with a narration telling us about how the various nations of the world are protecting themselves from each other. We watch some radar operators and technicians do their job. Eventually, we watch a pilot and some Air Force guy chat with each other. They seem to be doing some kind of experiment. Soon, the pilot, Mitchell MacAfee (Jeff Morrow), sees a UFO the size of a "battleship."

Unfortunately, it was moving too fast for him to see its shape. And it didn’t show up on radar. By now, we know that Mitchell isn’t an Air Force pilot, but is an electronics technician/civilian that works for them. Anyway, they send some fighter planes out to look for the UFO and one of them disappears. The rest see nothing. (I guess they didn’t fly together…)

Well, Mitch and a mathematician named Sally Caldwell (Mara Corday) (who helped with the experiment) go to New York on a plane. I’m not sure why they’re going there though. On the way, the plane is attacked and it goes down. Luckily, there was only the pilot, Mitch and Caldwell on board; and while they crash landed, Miss Caldwell managed to remain unharmed even though she had no restraints of any kind on…of course, neither did Mitch and he was fine too while the pilot, who was buckled in, got knocked unconscious. STUPID!!!

A nice French guy named Pierre Broussard (Louis Merrill) takes them to his house after the crash. Eventually, he sees a giant bird and gets scared. Mitch and Caldwell miss it and they get taken to the airport. We have to endure some dumb banter and watch them fall in love on the plane. Gimme a break!

We finally see the bird when it attacks a military plane and eats the people in it. It’s ugly, looks stupid and the sound effects are grating, to say the least! Look out, it’s nostrils can flare even though birds have beaks!!!

We learn that some weather-type balloons might have taken the bird’s picture, and sure enough, they had. Thus, they send a bunch of fighters out to shoot it down. This doesn’t work, of course, because this is a monster movie and that would be boring!

Somehow, a scientist figures out why nothing can harm it by looking at wrecked planes. It turns out that the bird has an anti-matter force field around its body that it can open and close at will. We also learn that it doesn’t land often and that it’s not from our planet. It also absorbs energy from what it destroys.

Miss Caldwell figures out why it came to our planet: It must want to nest! Mitch then says one of the best lines in the movie: "nest…eggs…more birds!!!" I guess the bird doesn’t need a male to fertilize its eggs…

Oh, there’s one more dumb thing. Mitch seems to see the dumb bird a lot in the movie even though we’re told that it flies all over the world. I don’t care if it is the size of a battleship, Mitch shouldn’t see it that often!

Anyway, it’s discovered that the bird landed near Pierre’s, so the nest must be near there. (Makes sense, don’t it?!) They find the nest and Pierre runs off scared silly. Thus, Miss Caldwell takes a rifle and when given a questioning look (remember, this is a 50’s movie!) she states that "I’m from Montana." They then destroy the one egg and tick off the bird that attacks Pierre and flies over them.

Well, let’s make this short. Mitch figures out how to make an anti-matter gun, called a masic atoms projector. They use a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo to explain it, but what they mean is that this projector can destroy the bird’s shield. Thus, Mitch, Miss Caldwell and a scientist make a device that no one has ever made or dreamt up before in a few days…in fact, they make a bunch of them…most of which end up being duds, but only because they were wired wrong!

They then start hooking it up on a plane and they get interrupted when a report comes in that the bird is attacking New York. They decide to fly out there and wire it up on the way. Hello!?! They buzz the bird and when they get it on there tail, the pilots/generals come and tell Mitch that he’d better hurry with that wiring! DUMB!!!! He makes it, of course and they zap the bird…then they use some really lousy missile effects to kill the bird. That’s it. THE END!

It’s an okay movie. But it’s still a b-movie. Watch at your own risk!

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