"The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" and "The Fog Horn"

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) was Ray Harryhausen's first solo feature as the stop-motion animator of the prehistoric reptile, the Rhedosaurus.   Previously, he assisted stop-motion pioneer Willis O'Brien (Mighty Joe Young).

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms was suggested by the Saturday Evening Post short-story "The Fog Horn" by Ray Bradbury (a life-long Harryhausen buddy).  "The Fog Horn" was story of a dinosaur who hears a seaside fog horn and, thinking it was another dinosaur, goes to investigate.  After finding it wasn't another dinosaur, the dinosaur "dies of a broken heart" (according to Bradbury).  Bradbury got the idea as he and his wife were strolling down the beach and noticed the ruins of an abandoned roller-coaster.  He thought they looked like a dinosaur skeleton.

One of the more memorable scenes in Beast was the Maine lighthouse attack, which was a nod to Bradbury's short-story.

According to Wikipedia:

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was the first live-action film to feature a giant monster awakened or brought about by an atomic bomb detonation to attack a major city. Due to its financial success, it helped spawn the genre of giant monster films of the 1950s.

This, of course, includes Godzilla of the following year.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms cost $200,000 to make.  It earned $5 million at the boxoffice.

A trivia tidbit: The rollercoaster at the Pike in Long Beach was used for the Coney Island rollercoaster scenes in the movie.