to be alive!

More than five million people stood and waited, sometimes in the pouring rain, sometimes for as long as two hours. Many of these returned to stand in line again and again. "to be alive!" was universally acclaimed as the outstanding attraction at the New York World's Fair.

The directors, Francis Thompson and Alexander Hammid, had succeeded in capturing the essence of life's magnificent simplicity - a leaf falls, a child laughs - and vividly conveying it to the viewer, creating through lyrical images a sense of joy, a feeling of great exhilaration. And a sense of sharing - the audience is caught up in the sensual experience of seeing, transcending all barriers of language, race, geography. What does the audience see? That the miracle of a spider web, the ecstasy of speed, the rapturous excess of a wedding feast are always truly wonderful, wherever, whenever they happen.