Allegedly found in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel in France during World War I, then brought to Los Angeles by Lee Duncan, the soldier who found and trained him, by 1927 Rin Tin Tin had become Hollywood's number one box-office star. Susan Orlean's book--about the dog and the legend--is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals. It is also a richly textured history of twentieth-century entertainment and entrepreneurship....

More than a century after the Lumière brothers made their first movie, the magic of the silver screen refuses to fade. Even silent era classics, such as the futuristic Metropolis, still retain the power to astonish. The talkies introduced new genres-- among them the special-effects blockbuster, first seen in King Kong and reinvented in the 1980s with Steven Spielberg's Jaws-- that continue to inspire and enthrall. In more recent years, technological...