In an interview, star Jeff Morrow said that neither he nor anyone on the film saw the title "monster" until they went to the film's premiere in Morrow's home town. It turned out that producer Sam Katzman had contracted with a low-budget model-maker in Mexico City to construct the "Giant Claw" and no one in the cast or crew had any idea it would come out looking as bizarre and, frankly, laughable as it did. Morrow said that the audience roared with laughter every time the "monster" made an appearance, and he wound up slinking in embarrassment out of the theater before the film was over so that no one who knew him would recognize him.

The producers originally planned to use a stop-motion model created by Ray Harryhausen for the bird. However, due to budgetary limitations they were forced to use a marionette.

The poster artists were purportedly not shown the puppet nor any other artwork from the film's production and concluded that the monster was a giant eagle or hawk. Thus, the creature in the posters looks nothing like the beast in the film.

Some of the better special effects are recycled from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956).

In 1957, Columbia Pictures theatrically distributed this film on a double bill with The Night the World Exploded (1957).

The Giant Claw was jokingly listed as number 1 on Cinemassacre's Top 10 Giant Monsters, beating out the likes of Godzilla, King Kong, and Gamera.

Screenwriter Samuel Newman re-used the character name "Dr. Karol Noyman" (here played by Edgar Barrier) for an entirely different character played by John Carradine in the 1959 film Invisible Invaders (1959), which Newman also wrote.

The footage of a B-25 taking off to attack the giant claw was taken from the movie "30 Seconds over Tokyo" You can clearly see the crew artwork belonging to Van Johnson's plane, "The Ruptured Duck", on the side of the nose.

Some of the stock footage of panicked crowds running was taken from the film The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951).

When the interceptors were scrambled at the beginning of the film, in two shots they are clearly Canadian AVRO CF 100's. Canadian markings are on the fuselage.