Rescued by Rover

A baby is stolen from a pram; the family dog runs the route, swims a river, finds the tenement, and leads the father back. That is the entire plot, and it is enough. Lewin Fitzhamon, working for Cecil Hepworth on a budget of seven pounds, treated each shot as a piece of a single continuous action: when Blair the collie leaves one frame he enters the next. The journeys are repeated in reverse, contracted in time: more than twenty shots, a character built from matched movement. Four hundred prints wore out two negatives and forced two complete remakes. Blair became the first canine star, and the name Rover became a dog's name. The grammar is still the one we use.