The Giant Claw from Chonny D'Arcy photo search per Kate Dick (sorry Facebook, that's her name)

The Giant Claw @ The Bamboo Bar
Two weekends ago Ai-Ling organised an outing to the Bamboo Bar, which is basically the outdoor ampitheatre that is part of the Luxe Bar in Mount Lawley. They have a fortnightly programme of B-movies - DVDs of B-Movies to be specific - that are projected on a Sunday night. Ten bucks and you get a bag of prepackaged popcorn. The film we saw was a 1950s sci-fi flick called The Giant Claw (1957). I remember seeing this on Sunday afternoon TV on Channel Nine, I think, and remembered it vividly. Scientists and the military are up in arms about something - "as big as a battleship" - that is destroying plans and making parachuting pilots disappear. Turns out it's a laughable looking turkey puppet that has come from another dimension and makes this annoying, cackling gobble-gobble sound.

The Giant Claw was a hoot to watch as it's basically an Edward D. Wood film not directed by Edward D. Wood (stiff acting, stock footage, shonky effects, terrible narration, etc) and the relaxed atmosphere of the amphitheatre made it into my own personal Mystery Science Theatre 3000 since we kept cracking lines about it in our group. Like it's very much of it's time with the hero at one point is on a airflight with the lady scientist who is also trying to get to the bottom of this. She's sleeping, which he decides is the perfect opportunity to plant one on her lips and she wakes up all coy and accepting rather than asking "Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?" Then there's also the bit where our heroes try to warn some teenagers drinking and listening to rock n roll in their convertible, being all "Hey, man, we just want to party and have a good time" before their devil-may-care attitude results in them being eaten by this Sesame Street puppet.

There's some more B-Movie sessions to look forward to including....

Sunday 29th November @ 6.30pm

Po recommended