**** Words Cannot Describe This One.

A monster movie classic from the 1950’s, and like many of those it was filmed in black and white as quickly and cheaply as possible with a silly-looking monster popping up now and then. What makes this one extra-special is just how dog-gone silly-looking the monster truly is. Think of a buzzard or a vulture, but with a stupidly-long neck, extra big claws (the namesake of the movie), goofy huge eyes, flaring nostrils, and a tuff of feathers sticking out the top of it’s head. Ah, screw the explanations, just look at this thing!

Trust me, it’s even sillier when it’s moving. From my understanding, the plot and special effects were filmed separately, so that the actors didn’t even know what kind of thing they were dealing with until the movie came to theaters (my what a surprise that would have been). Supposedly the bird stuff was filmed in Mexico, and although they actually did quite a good job with the budget, I still have no idea what they were thinking when they designed this buzzard. Plus the sound the bird makes is priceless (Click Here). None of this yacking does the movie justice, though, so I recommend looking up a movie trailer for the thing (or better yet, buy the movie). Still, I am obligated to review the thing, so here it goes.

In the northern reaches of Canada, brave men and women work hard to develop better radar methods to insure that our capitalistic society is safe from Soviet threats (yep, the movie was made during the Cold War all right). Planes start to mysterious vanish, however, and the one man who actually saw the cause also makes a harebrained pattern out of all the attacks going on. Apparently, the cause is a creature of some sort, moving in a spiral pattern and threatens the safety of every movie object around! It hails from an antimatter galaxy, or another dimension, or comes from the prehistoric past, or something, to lay it’s eggs and feed off anything it destroys! It’s nest happens to be on the farm of a particular French Canadian that befriended our heroes in their time of need with the power of homemade applejack (not the breakfast cereal, the hard liquor). According to the main character, who knows everything, nothing can stop it, because it is surrounded by an antimatter shield! Luckily our brave radar specialist, who also knows nuclear physics, invents a gun that shoots subatomic particles! Needless to say, the plan works and the world is saved thanks to science!

Truth be known, the plot itself is rather campy and the actors did a great job to keep a strait face through all of it. Between constant attacks by a giant bird, figuring out just what the bird is, shooting eggs (for one huge omelet), and screaming in terror, the main characters also enjoy long walks on the beach, getting drunk out of their minds, and falling in love with one another. Although all this plot does tend to get a little slow paced at times (an amazing feat for such a short movie), it is still full of interesting (and usually outdated) bits of entertainment, mostly of the dialogue variety. Granted, when the bird’s not on screen, the movie isn’t laugh-out-loud hilarious by any means, but it still is quirky enough to keep your interest.

Believe it or not, the special effects are done quite well considering all they did was move a marionette around model planes on strings. There are plenty of giant bird goodness to be had, with La Canyana (named after a supposed French Canadian myth of a witch) attacking New York City, eating various modes of transportation (planes, trains, automobiles, parachutes), tending to a nest, and just plain flying around looking silly. It blends with the rest of the footage surprisingly well, although there are times when the footage obviously overlaps the live-action stuff. The best footage, however, is stock footage ripped from "Earth vs. The Flying Saucers" (and you can even briefly see a flying saucer in one scene). Still, the thing is if it wasn’t for the fact that the bird looks so silly, the movie actually would have turned out to be much more legitimate (then again, it’s much more entertaining the way it is).

Let’s put it this way: they got what they paid for, and they didn’t pay much. A classic example of how a movie can accidentally become so bad it’s good by through sheer laziness on the studio’s part. This isn’t quite a unique movie, they made a bunch of similar movies back in the ‘50s, but in many ways this is the best for having one of the most entertainingly hilarious monster ever.

The plot is actually quite good, in it’s own way

The special effects are surprisingly well-done (especially in New York City)

Good music and great/bad sound effects

A classic so-bad-its-good scenario

I can’t stop laughing when I see La Canyana in action

Amazing how one guy has all the answers.

Slow paced for the most part, and sometimes boring

Gets really silly at times, and yet not always in a fun way

The plot gets miss-matched at times, with seemingly random scenes

I’m all for science, but this one abused the privilege that techno-babble brings

The bird is invincible, we’re doomed! Oh, now he’s dead. Well, that was fun, let’s go home.

Credits