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86 TECHNIQUE OF THE PHOTOPLAY Every day people die or get married. In most cases it costs so much a line to announce the fact in the papers, but if the daughter of millions marries the title of centuries, pages are given to the affair in its every aspect from the family history of the long line of dukes to the sort of embroidery on the bride's corset covers. The punch has been put into the commonplace. The status of the contracting parties has raised the story to the point of general interest. In one sense, then, the punch is that feature of a story which raises the story above the commonplace. A tramp dies in the workhouse. The story is recorded only in the records of the Bureau of Vital Statistics. Perhaps he dies in a vacant lot. The newspapers record that "The body of an unknown man, believed to have been a tramp, was found this morning in the vacant lot at the corner of Broad and Beech streets." The item is of more importance because one expects tramps to die in the workhouse, but few die in vacant lots. But perhaps the tramp met death while making a gallant rescue at a fire. The story of the tramp's heroism becomes more im- portant than the story of the fire, because his death is dramatic and the fire is not. Suppose that instead of that the tramp's body was found in the cellar of a grocery story. In the other end of the cellar was stored the surplus stock but the tramp was too weak from illness to break open a box of crackers or reach the bottles of wine close to hand. He had died of hunger and thirst in the sight of food and drink. That is dramatic. Take once more the cellar and the tramp. He has taken a little child under his protection and, too weak to go out and beg food, has died of starvation that the little child might live until help came. The tramp dead in the workhouse is commonplace. The tramp dead in a vacant lot is unusual, the tramp saving the life of an- other at the cost of his own is heroic, the tramp dying of starva- tion in the sight of food is dramatic, the tramp dying that a little life might be spared is pathetic. In each story there is an in- creasing punch. A man running for a train and losing it is generally regarded as something humorous by all save the man who misses the train. If losing the train means a sacrifice of a human life, the comedy is turned into the dramatic. If we know nothing of the fact that a life is dependent upon the catching of the train, the incident re- mains humorous to us. If we know, the situation is tragic. The presentation of this dramatic side in a forceful and striking man- ner puts in the punch.