Merian Cooper and Willis O'Brien first teamed up on a project that combined the animator's vision of creatures long dead with the director's showmanish view of the natural world. Many thousands of dollars were spent on developing CREATION (1930), a huge sum of money for the time, but all that survives of it is a 40-second showreel that can be seen on YouTube (above). The heartless explorer who shoots a baby triceratops through the eye may have been a less ethical version of Cooper, but from our modern point of view we may cheer when mommy dinosaur gives chase. Those painted matte backgrounds look familiar too, as if they're hiding someone much bigger and hairier just off-camera