Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters described the story as a "rebirth" for "The Adventures of Tintin" and described the addition of Haddock as "a formidable narrative element", one which "profoundly changed the spirit of the series". Elsewhere, he asserts that it is Haddock's appearance which "makes this book so memorable" and that he is tempted to define the book by that character's début. Fellow biographer Pierre Assouline commented that "The Crab with the Golden Claws" had "a certain charm" stemming from its use of "exoticism and colonial nostalgia, for the French especially, evoking their holdings in North Africa". Michael Farr asserted that the arrival of Haddock was the most "remarkable" element of the story, offering the series "tremendous new potential". He also thought that the dream sequences reflected the popularity of surrealism at the time, and that the influence of cinema, in particular the films of Alfred Hitchcock, is apparent in the story.