The earliest films were short, lasting only one minute or less. People could, for one cent, see simple action films of trains, fire engines, parades, crowds on city streets and similar subjects. Soon 20-minute pictures of news items were being shown in theaters at the end of the regular stage show. Later, films used a new method (putting the beginning of one scene upon the end of the scene before)for magical effects and to tie a story together. In 1903, a film was made about a train robbery, much of the action took place at the same time —— the robbers escaping, the men meeting and planning to capture them -- and the scenes moved smoothly, back and forth, from one scene to another instead of unnaturally showing each scene separately. This was the earliest successful film in which scenes were filmed at different places and times and then combined to make a logical story. A short time later, theaters showed for five cents a whole hour's entertainment of short films -- comedy, travel, and dramas. These films were simple and rough, and many were vulgar. Gradually the tastes of the audiences improved as the techniques improved. Before 1910 actors were employed in films without their names being given because the producers were afraid that if an actor became well known, he might demand more money. But later, it became known that a film with a popular actor in it could be sold at a higher price to theater owners than a film in which the actor was not known. Soon 'movie stars' won fame wherever films were shown. By 1915, the most popular stars were earning as much as $ 2, 000 a week, and large theaters were being built downtown in all the larger cities to show films alone. The films shown in those theaters were of several types: comedies emphasizing speed, movement and camera tricks serious dramas, often with a patriotic theme 'westerns', which showed, then as now, the American cowboy fighting on the side of law and justice murder mysteries and crime stories, and special films on art, music and other cultural subjects. Pictures of parades shown in the first films went on for no more than ____.