A fairly long movie for 1896 - but still not long enough for the coy wife to complete disrobing while her increasingly bored husband waits behind a screen. Must have been considered quite racy in its day, but something of a non-event today.
6 Reviews
This Plays Well With Tom Lehrer's "Smut" as a Soundtrack
boblipton9 February 2018
The first commercial use for any new technology in our era is pornography. Commercial film-making was two years old, still a novelty item, when this movie appeared -- and the print I saw of this blue movie was tinted blue!
It's certainly nothing much by modern standards. A couple -- he in formal clothes, she in a wedding gown -- prepare for bed. She takes off her outer clothes, leaving plenty on, while he reads the newspaper. She, in this case, is Louise Willy, which for an English-speaking audience is rather unfortunate. Even so, even for the era, it's rather mild for what was easily available if you weren't dragging along a blue-stocking. Neither was the competition at all backwards in showing their audience shocking behavior. There was THE KISS from Edison; Melies would release APRES LE BAL, in which he would, for an instant, show his future second wife au naturel, the following year. The racy race was on.
It's certainly nothing much by modern standards. A couple -- he in formal clothes, she in a wedding gown -- prepare for bed. She takes off her outer clothes, leaving plenty on, while he reads the newspaper. She, in this case, is Louise Willy, which for an English-speaking audience is rather unfortunate. Even so, even for the era, it's rather mild for what was easily available if you weren't dragging along a blue-stocking. Neither was the competition at all backwards in showing their audience shocking behavior. There was THE KISS from Edison; Melies would release APRES LE BAL, in which he would, for an instant, show his future second wife au naturel, the following year. The racy race was on.
Not really as pornographic as all that
kekseksa7 May 2016
This weasel word "pornography" has given people quite the wrong idea about these early scènes grivoises (the French expression for such mildly titillating material).
First for Eugène Pirou. Pirou was a highly respected and fashionable Paris photographer (he called himself the "the photographer of Kings") who, following the success of the Lumière cinématographe at the Grand Café, set up his own little cinema at the Café de la Paix in Paris in April 1896.
The first films shown were a series depicting the visit of Tsar Nicholas II to France in October 1896, a six-minute programme in all. In the autumn of 1896 he also produced townscapes, comic shorts, an excerpt from a ballet and a sophisticated historical tableau. His most celebrated film, however, and the principal source of his success, was Le Coucher de la mariée, in which Louise Willy recreated a pantomime-striptease which she was already famous for on the Paris stage.
Mme Willy was an almost equally respectable pantomime artiste, a pupil of the great mime Charles Aubert. Her first venture into striptease (déshabillé in French) had been Le Coucher d'Yvette at the Eldorado in Nice in 1894 but she had had a particular success in 1895 with Le Coucher de la mariée which was performed at the Olympia in Paris in 1895.
Pirou was the first to make a film version late in 1896 (with Albert Kirchner alias Léar as cameraman) and at one point was so successful that he opened two other venues in Paris and took the show on tour (to the Casino in Nice in 1897). But all of the major French film-makers (with the exception of the more provincial Lumière) rapidly followed suit. The first recorded performance by Willy of Le Coucher de la mariée was in 1897 (just a one minute film) but Pathé remade the film several times (in 1904 and 1907). Pathé included many scènes grivoises in its catalogue. So well known was the piece that the mime Brunin (principally a female impersonator) put on a parody version at the Ambassadors'Theatre. This too was filmed by Clément-Maurice and included (withboth colour and sound) in the programme of his Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre at the Paris Exposition of 1900.
The Pirou film was originally just three minutes long (not seven minutes) but was nevertheless long for the time. He produced other similar films as well. Léar also continued to produce such films on his own account which were included in the catalogue of Pathé's main rival, Gaumont. Even Georges Méliès produced at least one similar film (Après le bal).
Such films would not doubt have been regarded as pornography (or at best as "stag" films in puritan US (where even a film of a kiss could cause some flurry and where films of belly-dancers were censored) but in France such films attracted interest but did not shock and were a very established part of popular cabaret culture. That is what people came to Paris for and still do. To refer to them as pornographic is accurate enough in a way - they obviously have a voyeuristic appeal - but gives a rather misleading impression of their content.
First for Eugène Pirou. Pirou was a highly respected and fashionable Paris photographer (he called himself the "the photographer of Kings") who, following the success of the Lumière cinématographe at the Grand Café, set up his own little cinema at the Café de la Paix in Paris in April 1896.
The first films shown were a series depicting the visit of Tsar Nicholas II to France in October 1896, a six-minute programme in all. In the autumn of 1896 he also produced townscapes, comic shorts, an excerpt from a ballet and a sophisticated historical tableau. His most celebrated film, however, and the principal source of his success, was Le Coucher de la mariée, in which Louise Willy recreated a pantomime-striptease which she was already famous for on the Paris stage.
Mme Willy was an almost equally respectable pantomime artiste, a pupil of the great mime Charles Aubert. Her first venture into striptease (déshabillé in French) had been Le Coucher d'Yvette at the Eldorado in Nice in 1894 but she had had a particular success in 1895 with Le Coucher de la mariée which was performed at the Olympia in Paris in 1895.
Pirou was the first to make a film version late in 1896 (with Albert Kirchner alias Léar as cameraman) and at one point was so successful that he opened two other venues in Paris and took the show on tour (to the Casino in Nice in 1897). But all of the major French film-makers (with the exception of the more provincial Lumière) rapidly followed suit. The first recorded performance by Willy of Le Coucher de la mariée was in 1897 (just a one minute film) but Pathé remade the film several times (in 1904 and 1907). Pathé included many scènes grivoises in its catalogue. So well known was the piece that the mime Brunin (principally a female impersonator) put on a parody version at the Ambassadors'Theatre. This too was filmed by Clément-Maurice and included (withboth colour and sound) in the programme of his Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre at the Paris Exposition of 1900.
The Pirou film was originally just three minutes long (not seven minutes) but was nevertheless long for the time. He produced other similar films as well. Léar also continued to produce such films on his own account which were included in the catalogue of Pathé's main rival, Gaumont. Even Georges Méliès produced at least one similar film (Après le bal).
Such films would not doubt have been regarded as pornography (or at best as "stag" films in puritan US (where even a film of a kiss could cause some flurry and where films of belly-dancers were censored) but in France such films attracted interest but did not shock and were a very established part of popular cabaret culture. That is what people came to Paris for and still do. To refer to them as pornographic is accurate enough in a way - they obviously have a voyeuristic appeal - but gives a rather misleading impression of their content.
Ery exciting v
mrdonleone22 April 2019
So anyway, I was getting totally excited to see the world's first first porn and yes, I got totally manic when I saw her take off her clothes one by one and I imagined it was Nicole Kidman which did help to excite me you know and then she took off more and more and more clothes and I came to the sad conclusion that she would never be naked before the movie would end and I thought by myself what a shame what a shame but by then I was so excited that I couldn't hold myself any longer so I just let the feelings flow and there bam against the screen flew all my little children!!! Hey man, that was nice.
The First Porn?
Michael_Elliott17 May 2015
Coucher de la mariee (1896)
This 1896 film from Albert Kirchner is considered the first pornographic movie, or at least that's what a lot of online sources say. The film apparently ran for seven minutes but only the first one minute and forty-seconds still exist. We see a husband a his new wife on their wedding night in their bedroom as he wants to get to the action. She pushes him away but slowly starts to undress. The film "ends" just as she's about to get naked. Consider where it ends, it really made me wonder if this was really how the film was meant to end. I say this because it's not common for a film from 1896 to run seven-minutes so the current running time seems about right. Either way, there's nothing overly good or really all that interesting about anything here. Yes, for 1896 it's naughty but that's about it.
This 1896 film from Albert Kirchner is considered the first pornographic movie, or at least that's what a lot of online sources say. The film apparently ran for seven minutes but only the first one minute and forty-seconds still exist. We see a husband a his new wife on their wedding night in their bedroom as he wants to get to the action. She pushes him away but slowly starts to undress. The film "ends" just as she's about to get naked. Consider where it ends, it really made me wonder if this was really how the film was meant to end. I say this because it's not common for a film from 1896 to run seven-minutes so the current running time seems about right. Either way, there's nothing overly good or really all that interesting about anything here. Yes, for 1896 it's naughty but that's about it.
Possibly the first ever porn...if all of it survived
Tornado_Sam19 August 2018
Albert Kirchner's "Coucher de la mariée" is certainly not the first movie ever to deal with risque material. Since 1894, Edison from America was already at work filming Carmencita (who scandalously showed her ankles) Annabelle Moore (who, even more scandalously showed her legs) and in 1895, Princess Ali (who shockingly performed a belly-dance for her performance). Of course, all of these movies look very tame now and could hardly be considered pornographic today, but that's what people thought of it then.
However, it gets worse. Some movies, like the one I'm reviewing here, actually approached pornography in a different way. "Coucher de la mariée", is one of them, but now, unfortunately for some, survives only in a roughly two-minute fragmentary form. I say 'unfortunately for some', because while many people today would be offended by such a strip-tease and would be glad no more is available, for film buffs like me seeing a piece of history now mostly lost is a real shame, even though the concept of filming nudity remains titillatingly effective--in the negative sense. Apparently, this film originally ran about seven minutes total, and according to many, featured the first nude scene in history (preceding Georges Méliès's "Après le bal" by one year). In the form available now, it looks fairly tame though above the typical 'scandalous' material of the period. Two newlyweds make out on their wedding night (which would have been scandalous enough at the time considering "The May-Irwin Kiss") before the wife gets ready to undress for bed, so she sends her husband to one side of a folding screen before removing her garments in front of the camera. Of course he can't resist and even peeks at her a little bit over the screen. (Hoo boy, there's a Peeping Tom in the house).
Since a seven-minute film was ambitious for 1896, I too, like the other reviewer, wonder if this could really be the complete thing and nothing's missing. They probably have substantial evidence to support this claim. Either way, there's no dismissing the fact that this could really be the first film to feature a nude scene, so let's hope Louise Willy can wait another few years or so to finish undressing.
However, it gets worse. Some movies, like the one I'm reviewing here, actually approached pornography in a different way. "Coucher de la mariée", is one of them, but now, unfortunately for some, survives only in a roughly two-minute fragmentary form. I say 'unfortunately for some', because while many people today would be offended by such a strip-tease and would be glad no more is available, for film buffs like me seeing a piece of history now mostly lost is a real shame, even though the concept of filming nudity remains titillatingly effective--in the negative sense. Apparently, this film originally ran about seven minutes total, and according to many, featured the first nude scene in history (preceding Georges Méliès's "Après le bal" by one year). In the form available now, it looks fairly tame though above the typical 'scandalous' material of the period. Two newlyweds make out on their wedding night (which would have been scandalous enough at the time considering "The May-Irwin Kiss") before the wife gets ready to undress for bed, so she sends her husband to one side of a folding screen before removing her garments in front of the camera. Of course he can't resist and even peeks at her a little bit over the screen. (Hoo boy, there's a Peeping Tom in the house).
Since a seven-minute film was ambitious for 1896, I too, like the other reviewer, wonder if this could really be the complete thing and nothing's missing. They probably have substantial evidence to support this claim. Either way, there's no dismissing the fact that this could really be the first film to feature a nude scene, so let's hope Louise Willy can wait another few years or so to finish undressing.
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