Watch The Dog and His Various Merits

A silent paean to the powers of the pooch, this French short gives just a handful of examples of the dog in action with atmospheric renderings of provincial French life of the period. Underscoring both the virtues and the abilities of a tried-and-true companion and an admirable worker, too, the film comes from the Pathé brothers, whose mighty Parisian film equipment and production company would come out with the invention of the newsreel this same year. - Robert Avila