Jim Danforth - twice nominated for an Oscar - was the powerhouse matte painter and animator called in by Hammer Films when Ray Harryhausen was too busy with The Valley Of Gwangi (1969) to take part in the studio's sequel to One Million Years BC (1966). Though not as quick as Harryhausen, Danforth - pre-empting 'go-motion - experimented with motion blur and got better results out of his flying pterodactyls than the master himself. However, that's not why this shot is in here. What's exceptional about the dinosaur's pursuit of Victoria Vetri is how optical wiz Les Bowie has really inserted him into the environment, whereas so much stop-motion animation of the 1960s was clearly divided between freeze-framed background/foreground plates and the animator's work. It's a challenging piece of matting, particularly on one of Hammer's notoriously penny-pinching budgets.

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