The Kiss (1896 film)

Cast

• May Irwin as Widow Jones
• John Rice as Billie Bikes

Production

The film was one of the last shot at Edison's Black Maria.

Release

According to Charles Musser the film was released in either April or May 1896, and was publicized in a sponsored article in the New York World about actors kissing on stage. The article discussed the controversy surrounding onstage kissing and, along with an illustration of the Irwin and Rice kiss, referred readers to The Widow Jones and the Edison film. The campaign sought to bring attention to the newspaper, play, and movie all at once. The film was shown during demonstrations of the Vitascope.

Charles Frohman was initially against the film, stating that "I shall have to consider replacing Miss Irwin" in The Widow Jones, but then asked for Edson Raff to have advertising for the short include that Irwin was the star of The Widow Jones.

The film was sold to exhibitors for $7.50 ($232 in 2020) and it was being shown at the end of almost every show by the fall of 1896.

Reaction

The film was alleged to have caused a scandalized uproar and occasioned disapproving newspaper editorials and calls for police action in many places where it was shown. One contemporary critic wrote, "The spectacle of the prolonged pasturing on each other's lips was beastly enough in life size on the stage but magnified to gargantuan proportions and repeated three times over it is absolutely disgusting." However, according to Dengler (1979) in the Journal of Popular Film and Television, the shocked reaction of the general public is a myth.

The Edison catalogue advertised it this way: "They get ready to kiss, begin to kiss, and kiss and kiss and kiss in a way that brings down the house every time."

Perhaps in defiance, and "to spice up a film", this film was followed by many imitators and take-offs, including Something Good – Negro Kiss (1898), The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) and The Kiss (1900).

Public exposure

For a number of years, it was believed that a showing of The Kiss was the first film publicly shown in Canada, projected in West End Park, Ottawa, on July 21, 1896. It has since been learned that the competing Lumière Brothers Cinematograph had already exhibited different films in Montreal 24 days earlier, on June 27, 1896.

References

Works cited

References

1. "Preserving the Silver Screen (December 1999) – Library of Congress Information Bulletin".
2. "Complete National Film Registry Listing".
3. (June 8, 1896). "The Vitascope". The Buffalo Commercial.
4. [https://books.google.com/books?id=xq5FAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA239 The Chap-book, Volume 5, Number 5, July 15, 1896 ]
5. (1979). "The First Screen Kiss and "The Cry of Censorship"". Journal of Popular Film and Television.
6. "Brief Descriptions and Expanded Essays of National Film Registry Titles".
7. Gaudreault, André and Lacasse, Germain (1996). "The Introduction of the Lumière Cinematograph in Canada", ''Canadian Journal of Film Studies'', Volume 5, No. 2.