4. Pterodactyl (One Million Years B.C, 1966)
Having signed with the British bloodhounds Hammer Horror, Harryhausen soon brought his childhood fascination with dinosaurs to the big screen. If that wasn't enough of a sensation, director Don Chaffey had secured the casting of Raquel Welch. Bombshells and brontosaurs; what more could you want? Well, despite the surreal sight of a real-life iguana and tarantula placed alongside his stop-motion monsters (Harryhausen claimed that this 'trick' was to instil a sense of reality, that what you were seeing really did happen), some people took issue with the film's historical inaccuracies. When questioned about them, most notably the prospect of cavemen and dinosaurs sharing a screen, Harryhausen witheringly replied that he didn't make the film ''for professors''. Instead, he made it for the masses, the fans, an ever-growing audience who never quite knew what was lurking around the corner. And so not only did he bring his following face-to-face with such long-lost lizards as an allosaur, triceratops and ceratosaur but, best of all, he made 'em fight each other. And then, as a finale, he brought in a pterodactyl to snatch poor Raquel away. We'd like to think that this scene has entered the cinematic landscape for its vivid portrayal of the prehistoric beast- its wings flapping, its talons raised- but there's every reason to believe that Raquel Welch's fur bikini might have played its part, too.