''The Kiss'' (also known as ''The May Irwin Kiss'', ''The Rice-Irwin Kiss'' and ''The Widow Jones'') is an 1896 film, and was one of the first films ever shown commercially to the public. Around 18 seconds long, it depicts a re-enactment of the kiss between

May Irwin May Irwin (born Georgina May Campbell; June 27, 1862 – October 22, 1938) was an actress, singer and star of vaudeville. Originally from Canada, she and her sister Flo Irwin found theater work after their father died. She was known for her per ...

and John Rice from the final scene of the stage musical ''

The Widow Jones ''The Widow Jones'' was an 1895 New York City stage musical comedy. Thomas Edison hired the play's stars, May Irwin and John Rice, to recreate the kiss seen in act 1 of the play for the 1896 short film, '' The Kiss'', made in Edison's Kinetoscope ...

.'' The film was directed by William Heise for

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

. The film was produced in April 1896 at the

Edison Studios Edison Studios was an American film production organization, owned by companies controlled by inventor and entrepreneur, Thomas Edison. The studio made close to 1,200 films, as part of the Edison Manufacturing Company (1894–1911) and then T ...

of Edison, the first

film studio A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the productio ...

in the United States. At the time, Edison was working at the Black Maria studios in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1999, the short was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

and selected for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

Cast

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 The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under pub ...

'' 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 Vitascope was an early film projector first demonstrated in 1895 by Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat. They had made modifications to Jenkins' patented Phantoscope, which cast images via film and electric light onto a wall or screen. The ...

Charles Frohman Charles Frohman (July 15, 1856 – May 7, 1915) was an American theater manager and producer, who discovered and promoted many stars of the American stage. Notably, he produced '' Peter Pan'', both in London and the US, the latter productio ...

was initially against the film, stating that "I shall have to consider replacing Miss Irwin" in ''

'', 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 contained the very first kiss on film, with a close-up of a nuzzling duo followed by a short peck on the lips ("the mysteries of the kiss revealed"). The kissing scene was denounced as shocking and obscene to early moviegoers and caused the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

to call for censorship and moral reform, as kissing in public at the time could lead to prosecution.Sex in Cinema: Pre-1920s
/ref> The film 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 was followed by many kiss 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 Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, projected in West End Park,

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the c ...

, on July 21, 1896. It has since been learned that the competing

Lumière Brothers Lumière is French for ' light'. Lumiere, Lumière or Lumieres may refer to: *Lumières, the philosophical movement in the Age of Enlightenment People *Auguste and Louis Lumière, French pioneers in film-making Film and TV * Institut Lumière, a ...

Cinematograph had already exhibited different films in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

24 days earlier, on June 27, 1896.Gaudreault, André and Lacasse, Germain (1996). "The Introduction of the Lumière Cinematograph in Canada", ''Canadian Journal of Film Studies'', Volume 5, No. 2.

References

Works cited

* * *

External links

*
''The Kiss''
at

''The Kiss''
video and biography of

''The Kiss''
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

*''The Kiss'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, Bloomsbury Academic, 2010 , pages 4–

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiss, The 1896 films 1890s American films American silent short films United States National Film Registry films American black-and-white films Films shot in New Jersey Kissing Films directed by William Heise Articles containing video clips Edison Manufacturing Company films 1890s romance films American romance films 1896 short films Obscenity controversies in film