"That's just it," commented Mr. Pertell. "You've got to think in these days of moving pictures. The audiences are more critical than you would suppose. Even the children now laugh at fake scenes and incongruities. And as for using a dummy in danger scenes, it's getting harder and harder every day to get by with it. You stick to horses or to Shank's mules, young man, when it comes to transportation in this war film. No autos where they are going to show in the film."
That was only one of the many details the director and his assistants had to look after. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is much more so the price of good films. The camera sees everything in a pitiless light. It exaggerates faults and it refuses to shut its eye to anything at which it is pointed. The absolute truth is told every time.
Of course, there are trick films, but even then the camera tells the truth fearlessly. It is only the on-lookers' eyes that are deceived. The camera can not be fooled. And though a man may be seen to be shaking hands with himself or cutting off his own head, it is done by double exposure, and could not be accomplished were it not for the fact that the camera and the film are so fearlessly honest and truth-telling.
"What's the matter, Estelle?" asked Alice of the rider that afternoon, when they were in Ruth's room resting after the work of the day. "You seem to be in pain."
"I am. I strained my side a little in that water jump. Petro slipped a bit on the muddy bank."
"Did you do much jumping out West?" asked Ruth, while Alice was getting a bottle of liniment.
"In the West? I don't know that I ever jumped there. I can't remember——"
Estelle paused, and passed her hand across her eyes as though to shut out some vision.
"Are you faint?" asked Ruth.
"No—no, it isn't that. It—it is just that I—that I—— Oh, I wonder if I can tell you?" and Estelle seemed in such distress that the two sisters hastened to her.