In the history of cinema there have been quite a few “less-than-impressive” monsters to grace the big screen, from the lumbering tree monster in From Hell It Came to the giant locusts in The Beginning of the End, but in 1957 producer Sam Katzman topped them all with his offering of The Giant Claw, a…
Tag: Sam Katzman
Creature with the Atom Brain (1955) – Review
You have to admire a 1950s sci-fi/horror film that boasts the tagline “Based on Scientific Fact!” in a story about atomic resurrected zombies. That kind of marketing has balls. In this outing, producer Sam Katzman blends film noir, horror and science fiction with somewhat expected results. Let’s sit back and take a look at Creature…
Atom Man vs. Superman (1950) – Review
The 1948 Superman serial was an incredible success for Columbia Pictures, so successful that it was even released in theatres not known for showing serials, which meant a sequel was pretty much a foregone conclusion. And while that first one featured the nefarious plotting of the femme fatale known as the Spider Lady, who was…
Superman: The First Serial (1948) – Review
There have been many adaptations of Superman over the years but it was Columbia Pictures who brought the world its first “live-action Superman” to theatres – Max Fleischer at Paramount was technically the first one to bring Superman to the big screen but his was an animated version – and while Columbia’s superhero serial was…
The Night the World Exploded (1957) – Review
Disaster films and science fiction are two genres that go well together, like ham and eggs one with a little more destruction, and this is because if a particular disaster isn’t something as simple as a towering building on fire or a rogue wave swamping an ocean liner, then it would be up to scientists…