Then there’s another flick, and, lo! a magnificent train, racing across the prairie, gives us a hint that we are watching Canada’s premier railroad in operation. The screen obligingly confirms this impression by—Flick:
LUXURY, SPEED, AND SECURITY.
THE GRAND TRUNK MILLIONAIRES’
LIMITED THUNDERING ACROSS THE
CONTINENT
ON ITS JOURNEY TO BISON SNOUT.
The scene changes, now, to a precipitous hill overlooking the smiling valley through which the train is thundering. Far away you can see her plume of smoke, racing across the sky. And here, in the foreground, are two sinister figures, mounted on the inevitable mustangs, masked and visored, grim and silent. Oo! They look like Irish gunmen; and as soon as they espy the train they turn simultaneously to each other and exclaim with sinister emphasis—Snick:
THERE’S BOODLE IN THIS.
Click—and we’re back again with our two desperadoes, galloping like mad from their point of vantage towards their luckless prey. (Noise off—cloppety, cloppety, cloppety, clop.)
Next we have a close-up of the train as it speeds over the landscape. The passengers are sitting back in their places, wreathed in smiles. They like their train. They think it particularly safe; and behind it all there is the feeling of immense security derived from the thought that they are travelling in a British Dominion of the British Empire under the waving protection of the Union Jack on which the sun never sets. The orchestra interprets their thoughts, and ours, by playing a selection of patriotic melodies.
Now we are shown something really out of the way. Thus: Snick:
ON THE FOOTPLATE.
Flick:
SWAYING ALONG AT HUNDREDS OF
MILES AN HOUR, THE JOVIAL
ENGINEER AND HIS MERRY COLLABORATORS
PASS THE TIME WITH
DANCE AND SONG.