3. Centaur (The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad, 1974)
You can't help but wonder if, with every film he made, Harryhausen could practically see the expectation in his audience's eyes. And so, knowing that his latest work had yet again brought the impossible to life, he must somehow go one better, one bolder. This might go some way towards explaining just why The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, a hundred minutes crammed with myth and magic, is so wonderfully mad. The second part of the trilogy boasts the Homonicus, a dragon-like creature who obeys only his master, an evil magician known as Prince Koura (Tom Baker) There's also the six-armed god called Kali who takes on Sinbad's entire crew with a sword in each of its hands. And then there's the Griffin, summoned to rescue Sinbad from Koura at the Fountain of Destiny. But most spectacular of all is the Centaur; a truly impressive foe that, when it rears up onto its hind legs, allows you to see the ripples in its fur. As the beast was known as 'The God of the Single Eye', Harryhausen, somewhat eerily, placed a small doll's eye in the middle of the Centaur's forehead.