Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • The Newspaper Chase

  • The time is one o'clock in the morning.

  • The place is the Ritesville town art gallery.

  • A window opens and a man comes in.

  • His name is Harry Black, and he is a thief.

  • It is dark in the art gallerybut Harry has a light.

  • He looks across the room at a painting.

  • "There it is!" he says.

  • Harry moves quickly across the room.

  • He stands and looks at the painting.

  • "A million dollars for this?" he thinks.

  • "I don't understand it."

  • But he takes a knife from his coat.

  • Then he takes the painting veryvery slowly from its frame.

  • Harry goes back across the room to  the window, but he walks into a table.

  • There is a beautiful blue glass vase on the table.

  • It falls on the floor and  breaks into a hundred pieces.

  • Harry smiles.

  • "Is that a million-dollar vase?" he thinks.

  • "It isn't now!"

  • He runs across the pieces of glass to the window.

  • Harry has a room in Mrs. Allen's rooming house.

  • He goes quietly up to his  room and closes the door.

  • Mrs. Allen and her daughter, Janey, are sleeping.

  • They don't hear him.

  • In his room, Harry takes  the painting from his bag.

  • He puts it in a newspaper, then he  puts the newspaper under his bed.

  • In the morning, Janey Allen is in the kitchen.

  • She is putting old bottles into a box.

  • "Recycling is important," Janey thinks.

  • On the TV, a reporter is at  the Ritesville art gallery.

  • He is talking about the painting.

  • "It's a million-dollar painting," he is saying.

  • "Here's a photo of it."

  • Now the reporter is talking  about the blue glass vase.

  • "It's in a hundred pieces now," he says.

  • Janey looks at the photo of the vase, then she  asks her mother, "Do you have any old bottles?"

  • "No," Mrs. Allen says.

  • "That's all, Janey. But the newspaper  recycling truck is coming today."

  • "Of course!" Janey says. "It's Friday!"

  • Harry isn't in his room.

  • He is talking on his  telephone to a man in Seattle.

  • The man wants the painting, but Harry isn't happy.

  • "Five thousand dollars?" Harry says.  "No! It's a million-dollar painting! ...

  • What? ... No, I want fifty thousand, not five! ...

  • What? ... The painting?

  • Yes, I have it, and it's OK."

  • Janey is looking for old newspapers.

  • Early on Friday mornings, she takes  them from every room in the house.

  • Then later, the newspaper recycling truck arrives.

  • Janey opens Harry's door and looks into his room.

  • She always takes his old newspapers  or bottles for recycling.

  • "Ah!" she thinks. "There's a  newspaper under Harry's bed."

  • Janey puts the old newspapers  into a black recycling box.

  • She runs from the house and sees the truck.

  • "Wait!" she says. And she quickly  gives the box to one of the men.

  • Harry is coming back to the house.

  • He sees the recycling truck, and he sees Janey.

  • "It's Friday!" he says.

  • "The newspaper—! Oh, no!"

  • Harry chases after the truck.

  • "Wait! Wait!" he says.

  • Janey watches him.

  • "What is he doing?" she thinks.

  • Harry jumps into the back of the truck.

  • "I want my newspaper!" he says.

  • "Where's my newspaper?"

  • But there are thousands of  newspapers in the truck.

  • Janey walks quickly from the house to the truck.

  • "Why is your newspaper  important, Harry?" she asks.

  • "It's two days old."

  • But Harry doesn't hear her.

  • He is thinking, "My million-dollar painting!

  • Where is it?"

  • The men from the recycling  truck are watching Harry, too.

  • But now Janey is looking at Harry's shoe.

  • "There's some blue glass in  Harry's shoe," Janey thinks.

  • "Where—? Oh!" Suddenly, she remembers the photo  of the blue glass vase on the TV.

  • She looks again at the piece  of glass in Harry's shoe.

  • "Is it from the vase in the  art gallery?" she thinks.

  • "Is Harry Black the thief?"

  • The men from the recycling truck are angry.

  • "We're going now," they are saying.

  • "We're late."

  • "But I want my newspaper!" Harry says.

  • In the house, Janey is talking  to the police on the telephone.

  • "Maybe I'm wrong," she is saying.

  • "But there's blue glass in his shoe ... What? ... Yes, he's looking for the newspaper now."

  • Two policemen arrive quickly.

  • "Let's look at your shoe," they say to Harry.

  • Harry doesn't understand.

  • "What's wrong?" he asks.

  • One of the policemen takes  the glass from Harry's shoe.

  • "This is a very expensive  piece of glass," he says.

  • "From a very expensive vase. Remember?"

  • Suddenly, Harry understands.

  • "Oh, no!" he says.

  • Police cars and policemen arrive.

  • The men look in the truck for  the million-dollar painting.

  • Later, they find the right newspaper  and they find the painting.

  • "Good work, Janey," one of the policemen says.

  • "And there's a reward."

  • "Maybe I can buy a painting with the reward!" Janey says.

  • "I like pictures!"

The Newspaper Chase

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it