lly one that suddenly discloses an
important point of the plot. It may be that one of the characters,
when the scene is about half through, unexpectedly makes a statement
which amounts to a confession of some crime. We read on the screen,
"Judge, she said that to save me. That is my revolver!" No sooner has
the cut-in been shown, and the action resumed, than the eyes of every
spectator are fastened upon the face of the character in the scene
who should, by all logical reasoning, be most affected by that
confession. If a scene is important enough to require a cut-in leader,
it is reasonable to suppose that it has the full attention of the
spectator after the first few seconds of action. This being so, it
would seem that the spectator is far less likely to miss a point of
the action _immediately following a cut-in_ than he is to miss what
occurs at the beginning of a scene, following an ordinary
between-the-scenes leader. It is a fact that a few directors drag the
action of a scene for the first few seconds following an ordinary
leader for the purpose of again centering the attention of the
beholder on the action itself, before developing--_in_ action--another
point of the plot.

We have already referred to "panoramic" leaders giving long casts of
characters, the leader moving upwards on the screen instead of
sidewise as in panoramic _scenes_. Today, the panoramic sub-title, as
well as the panoramic letter or other insert, is quite common,
especially in feature pictures. Those directors who, notwithstanding
all, still favor the use of introductory matter before the first
scene, frequently resort to long panoramic sub-titles as a means of
making the spectator familiar with the theme of the story before
starting to tell it, just as Kipling has so frequently introduced an
introductory paragraph of the same nature in his short fiction. To our
way of thinking, a thematic sub-title of this kind, used before the
opening scene, is far less out of place than the ordinary introductory
titles merely having to do with the characters, because it really
does help prepare the spectator for the _kind_ of story he is about to
view.

Then, again, it may be added that the present-day length of leaders
greatly modifies what we say--as a sound guiding principle--in Section
7 of Chapter XVII. A great many excellent detective-story films have
been produced, either from original synopses or as adaptations of the
work of fiction writers. In th