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The dog sat on the driver's seat with his paws on the upper side of the wheel and the baby sat beside him, thoroughly enjoying the novel experience. I wonder what the police would say if we attempted that on the public road today! Baby's Playmate came soon after this and then a second fine film dealing again with the Black Beauty theme, in which that sagacious horse calls a fireengine to save the baby from a burning hay-rick. And then, near the end of the year that blessed infant was being rescued again, but this time by an elephant!
None of these films was very long and it must not be supposed that we were producing no others while all this was going on. I am just picking these out because they seem to me to be sufficiently unusual to be interesting. What with me and my dogs and Fitzhamon and his horses — and even elephants — we were doing quite a good trade in animal pictures. At one time we even had a snake! I was told he was quite harmless but he was over four feet long and it took me quite a time to get to like him well enough to wear him round my neck and to caress him for the encouragement of the actress who had to fondle him. His end was untimely for we lost him one day in Ashley Park and never heard of him again. We thought it better not to make enquiries.
In the following year, the animal theme continued with further variations. In A Plucky Little Girl, a rather older child this time, with the help of her dog, is successful in capturing a criminal — always a safe bet — and the same theme in different forms persists for some years later, but here we will leave it and change the point of view entirely to take a peep at what was happening to our films on the other side of the Atlantic about this time.
It was in or about the year 1909 that the internecine film war in America culminated in the formation of a trust whose object, so far as we were concerned, was to put a stop to the import of English and other European films. It was met by the formation of a counter-trust in the shape of the International Projecting and Producing Company who arranged for the introduction of foreign films on the same terms as those paid by the members of the trust for their privilege; half a cent per foot. So that we continued to export to America for some considerable time.
It was at about this time that the news-reels actually got into their stride and took their very important share in the making of entertainment for our picture-theatres. It is interesting to remember that the Hepworth Company had once been, and for a long
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