The Kiss (1896)

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Movie
German title The kiss
Original title The Kiss
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1896
length 0.25 minutes
Rod
Director William Heise
script John J. McNally
camera William Heise
occupation
The kiss

The Kiss (original title: The Kiss , also: The May Irwin Kiss , The Rice-Irwin Kiss or The Widow Jones ) is an American film directed by William Heise from 1896. In only one setting is the romantic final scene of Broadway - Musicals The Widow Jones re-enacted, showing the first kissing scene in film history .

background

After the great success of the films publicly shown by the Lumière brothers at the end of 1895, the American inventor and film producer Thomas Alva Edison quickly realized that the kinetoscope he marketed , a kind of peep box, would have no future against the projected films. Therefore, from the spring of 1896, he had films produced for this new type of film showing with the newly founded company Vitascope .

In April 1896, William Heise, who was responsible for the production of the Edison films after the departure of William KL Dickson , filmed a scene that was based on the final scene of the then very popular play The Widow Jones . The film, which is around 20 seconds short, shows the two stage actors May Irwin and John C. Rice in a close-up embrace that ends with a kiss. This scene was filmed on behalf of the New York daily newspaper New York World , which also published photos from The Kiss (and thus, according to its own account, was the first newspaper to have a kiss printed on a title page).

The Kiss became Edison's most successful Vitascope film in the 1890s. For more than a year, the film was screened across the United States. Edison's catalog advertised that The Kiss "always provoked tumultuous applause." However, there were also critical voices who saw something amoral in this film. The new medium of film, which was still a fairground attraction at the time, had its first scandal with The Kiss .

The simple subject of The Kiss was often imitated in the following years, Edison's production company itself made a remake in 1900; and some of the first attempts at film editing - embedded in other plots - had similar kissing scenes on the subject (e.g. George Albert Smith's The Kiss in the Tunnel , 1899). Today, The Kiss is considered the most famous American film of the 19th century.

Awards

In 1999, The Kiss was listed in the National Film Registry as a particularly preservable film.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Anatomy of a Kiss , New York World , April 26, 1896, p. 21.