Re: Er....
True or not, it's not unheard of, and I'm pretty sure I've heard of a laser being used to detect vibration at some point in the not-too-distant past. If they did, they didn't use a mirror but the glass itself, much like how a shotgun microphone focuses on the acoustic vibrations of the flat window panes.
But here I thought they were trying to recreate the real sounds off old silent cinema (no chance at only 24fps). Silly me...