That’s done by what is called “Slow Cranking.” The director, we will say, wants to show an automobile crossing in front of the Lightning Express, with only half a second to spare. If he were really to send the auto with its driver and passengers across the track just in time to escape the flying cowcatcher, it would be too terrible a risk. So they “slow down” the action. Instead of crashing along at sixty or seventy miles an hour the train is held down to a mere crawl—say ten miles an hour, so that it could be stopped short, if necessity arose, in time to avoid an accident. The auto would cross the tracks at a correspondingly slow gait. And the camera man, instead of cranking his film at normal speed, two turns to a second, would slow down to a single turn in three seconds, or thereabouts. That would mean it would take six seconds for one foot of film to pass the lens of the camera, instead of the usual second. So that when the picture appears on the screen, projected at normal speed, we should see in one second what actually occurred in six seconds; the train traveling at ten miles an hour would hurry past, on the screen, at sixty; the automobile bumping cautiously over the tracks in low speed or intermediate, at six or seven miles an hour, would flash past the approaching cowcatcher at somewhere around forty. In comedies, this trick of “slow cranking” has been used until it has grown rather tiresome, unless done with some new effect or with real cleverness. Autos have zigzagged around corners, or skidded in impossible circles, men have climbed like lightning to the tops of telegraph poles, and nursemaids have run baby-carriages along sidewalks at racetrack speed until we are a little inclined to yawn when we see one of the old stunts coming off again. But there are always legitimate uses of slow cranking—as in the case of the train and the automobile. At one time a company was filming an episode that occurs in the story of a cross-country automobile tour. In the story, the girl, who is driving to the Pacific Coast with her father, stops the machine and gives a lift to a tramp. This tramp proves to be a bad man, and decides to hold up the defenseless girl and her invalid father. He is standing on the running-board, beside the wheel, and threatens to turn the car over the steep embankment at the side of road if the girl doesn’t do just as he says. This keeps her from slowing down, or giving any signal for help to machines that pass in the opposite direction. The tramp evidently means what he says, and would be able to jump safely off as he sent the car smashing to destruction. It would look like a mere accident, and with the girl and her father killed nothing could very well be proved. [Illustration: _Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation._ ROPING AN AUTO BANDIT. According to moving-picture custom, this “action” was posed for the “still,” or publicity photograph. The photoplay shows the scene described on page 28.]