Before her, finally, the flames were peaking, she could see their orange tips jumping in and out of sight. It was a very large world. She knew there was be a place for her somewhere, and she knew she hadn’t found it yet. Gazing over the burning pyre, listening to the celebrations beyond, she knew she would find it and it would welcome her.

Our Feature Presentation

Three Blue Lights

Comedy effects are always to be derived when actors place large and powerful creatures in ridiculous situations. Audiences like to see power defied. Here the comedian swinging on the ostrich’s tail is supported by an invisible wire from an overhead trusswork which, fastened on an auto, moves along with a speed equal to that of the bird.

—Homer Croy, caption for photograph in
How Motion Pictures Are Made, 1918

A turnip once said: “I taste very good with honey.”

“Keep talking, you braggart,” replied the honey, “I taste good without you.”

—traditional Russian folktale in its entirety

If bad dogs only had been in the world, the word “dog” would hardly have degenerated into an insult, for our delightful human race has a most tremendous respect for teeth which are ever ready to bite.

—Max von Stephanitz, The German Shepherd Dog
in Words and Pictures, 1925

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Illuminated numbers that were achromatic as soot counted down within a target-shaped medallion, crosshairs that now rippled back and forth, for someone had opened a door, and the bedsheet had begun to shake in the wind as if filled by a ghost.

“Sorry,” whispered McAdoo. “Sorry about that.”

The countdown indicated that the upcoming film would be military in nature, for the War Department required all training films to begin with a focusing mechanism that would cause the audience to pay strict attention. Hence the development of the leader, which was the prefix today for a different kind of film.

McAdoo took a seat in the back of the room, the basement of the White House, where films were shown. It was a cold place, with tiny smeared windows at street level and exposed pipes in the ceiling, some of which had cloths knotted around them to indicate where ancient leaks still needed to be fixed. The seats were a dozen caneback chairs from the second Cleveland administration, squeezed among the towers of stored furniture and linens and artwork and dinnerware.

The audience consisted of McAdoo, some representatives of the War Department, and a young man from the Department of Public Information, who asked if the projectionist should start over.

“Keep it rolling,” McAdoo said.