Given the question: Build a movie plot around this: What attracts the policeman to the burning house? The dog.
The answer is:
It's 1927 and we meet silent movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) on top of the world. He's behind the screen; in front of it an ecstatic audience is enthralled by his latest starring role. As the credits roll, Valentin takes the stage for what a virtuosic display of bowing, his canine sidekick performing some cute tricks too.Outside the theatre, adoring fans and press push and surge to breathe the same air as their hero. A pretty young girl at the front of the crowd drops her wallet, and makes the most of picking it up to slip under the security cordon. There's silence as Valentin looks shocked, confused, angry even - but it's all his joke and, laughing at his own power to create such confusion, he gamely poses for photos with the young lady to the delight of the assembled press, and to the chagrin of his stern, world-weary wife who reads of the escapade in the papers the next day.The young girl - one Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), we learn - having shared a moment with her hero is inspired to follow his path, and turns up at the studio to audition, successfully, as an extra. Valentin himself arrives at the same studio where he is again the star, this time of 'A German Affair'. On entering the studio the star is enthralled by a pair of legs he sees rehearsing on the other side of a screen. He joins the dance from his side of the screen, and beckons to the set builders to remove the screen, hoping to surprise the girl. It's he, though, who is surprised to discover the legs belong to the same Peppy Miller from last night's crowd and this morning's papers.Years pass, one presumes in a similar fashion. One day though, Al Zimmer, the immaculately stereotyped cigar-chomping, braces-pinging studio boss (John Goodman) calls Valentin in to see the latest technological innovation - a primitive attempt to record sound with motion pictures. Valentin scoffs at the footage, but is clearly ruffled by it. He dreams a nightmare where everyday sounds are exaggerated (for the first time here the film takes on a diegetic...