Page "History of film" Paragraph 144

As the years moved on a sudden decline in the use of long flash-back sequences set in around 1917, but on the other hand the use of a transition to and from a brief single shot memory scene remained quite common in American films.

However, there could still be an even more complex flash-back construction in American films in the case of W. S. Van Dyke ' sThe Lady of the Dugout ( 1918 ).

This film has a story that happened long before which is narrated by one character in the framing scene, and initially accompanied by his narrating dialogue in intertitles, though after a while this stops, and the intertitles then convey the dialogue occurring within the flashback.

Inside this main flashback there develops cross-cutting to another story, happening at the same time, and at first apparently unconnected with it, though the connection eventually appears.

Next, inside this first flashback, the Lady of the title narrates another story, presented in flashback form, but with cutaways inside it back to events occurring in the time frame in which she is doing her narrating.

Actually, all this is fairly easy to follow while watching the film, in part because what happens in all these strings of action is relatively simple.