When my local video store recently held a sale of "film classics," I picked up, at a bargain price, a copy of the 1974 movie Death Wish. Why would I want to own this chestnut, featuring Charles Bronson as an architect turned vigilante after the murder of his wife and brutalization of his daughter? Because about two-thirds of the way through it there appears on the screen for a full four seconds-possibly five-the picture of a sign with my company's name on it.

This free advertising came as a reward for saving the film production crew from an embarrassing blunder. As we watched a scene being shot in front of our work site, we were amazed to see that an actor playing a construction worker was wearing the wrong kind of hardhat. He had on a flat helmet, reminiscent of a World War I doughboy, rather than the familiar hardhat of today, which is modeled along the lines of World War II headware. (The flat helmet is worn by heavy construction underground workers-the "moles"-but never by building construction workers.) We rushed in to prevent this terrible gaffe, and benevolently provided a hardhat of the proper sort. The grateful director told us to position our five-foot-square company sign as a backdrop for the following take.

The movie's release, about a year later, brought telephone calls from friends and colleagues who had seen it and noticed the sign. It's amazing the impact that can be made by an image that appears on the screen for just a few seconds. (Our favorite call came from a competitor who said that we'd spoiled his evening.) The sudden celebrity was enjoyable but fleeting. Even though the film was a popular success, it was soon gone, and the telephone calls stopped coming. Ah, well: sic transit gloria mundi; so passes away the glory of this world.

Or does it? As I watched the film at home on my VCR, I thought anew about the ephemeral nature of things. On my television screen, that sign-writ large in red letters upon a glistening white background-looks as fresh and new as it ever did. In the movies it has been saved from the ravages of time.