Thomas Edison's VitaScope - The First Screen Kiss

This is the first ever screen kiss. It is a a forty-seven second recreation of a stage kiss from the musical The Widow Jones directed by William Heise and performed by actors John C. Rice and May Irwin.
It was the most popular of the films shown on the Edison Vitascope, a device for projecting moving pictures funded by Edison but designed in fact by by C. Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat. Edison, in typical fashion, demanded as a condition of financing that the device be rechristened with his name.
Though incredibly tame by today's standards, the movie was considered scandalous at the time of its release and became the subject of much outcry.
It has since entered film history as one of the most memorable early films.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Thomas
• Edison
• Vitascope
• forst
• screen
• kiss
• film
• cinema
• history

[ChocolateFrogPrince]

Try what again?

[lightnin7]

sorry, try again.

[ChocolateFrogPrince]

It's more than likely in the hands of a privaye collector. I should imagine tht like most pornography it's both mindnumbingly boring and thoroughly predictable.

There's probably an online classic stag film forum soewhere where someone may have a rip. Search for it and you may get lucky.

[Daemonocracy]

I want to see it because despite it's sexual nature, it is still a piece of cinema history.

[ChocolateFrogPrince]

I wouldn't know. Why would you want to?

Whatever your reasons, I should imagine you'd have to search quite hard to even find a copy since it is a rare piece of cinematography. As with wearing condoms during stranger sex, I'd advise you to invest in decent antivirus and anti-spyware/malware if you are going to go on a search however.

[Daemonocracy]

And where can I watch Am Abend without getting a virus or Trojan loaded onto my computer?

[RockMan356]

I stand corrected



[ChocolateFrogPrince]

It is widely acknowledged that almost all so called "stag films" recorded prior to 1950s has been lost, though significant finds detailing the porn careers of the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Joan Crawford have caused something of a stir. Even now the so called "leaked sex tape" is viewed as a way of gaining fame or renewing a fading career no matter how shallow or dubious.

As today, what went on behind the veil of respectability was a different proposition entirely.

[ChocolateFrogPrince]

Currently the race is on to produce the forst 3D pornographic film, a dubious honour to be sure. This does show just how things work even if we don't want to acknowledge them.

While Edison's film was publicly risque to be sure, it was shot both to publicicise the new machine and embed the motion picture format in the minds of viewers used only to still pictures and live performance, in private there can be no doubt that far more lascivious subject matter was recorded.

[ChocolateFrogPrince]

The German film Am Abend (c. 1910) is, as Robertson writes, "a ten-minute film which begins with a woman masturbating alone in her bedroom, and progresses to scenes of her with a man performing sex, fellatio and anal penetration." (Robertson, p. 66)

Sex has driven most media industries, from movies to the internet. Most streaming technology we take for granted today was pushed forward by those who wanted to exploit the new tech for profit