It’s only 20 seconds long, but the contrast it provides in
thinking about on-screen presence is a valuable one.
Something Good —
Negro Kiss
Dir: Unknown
Prod: William Selig
Scr: N/A
Phot: Unknown
Premiere: 1898
20 seconds
This “Negro kiss” film came as a direct result of the 1896
John C. Rice/May Irwin “The Kiss,” a huge nickelodeon hit from 1896 which wewrote about here. Evidently William Selig, an Edison competitor who based his
Selig Polyscope Company in Chicago, thought a similar product, enacted by black
people for black audiences, would make money. This is the earliest preserved
Selig-produced film.
It probably failed, as it languished unknown, until it was
rediscovered by USC archivist Dino Everett decades later, and properly
identified with the help of Dr. Allyson Nadia Field of the University of
Chicago. It depicts two vaudeville performers, Gertie Brown and Saint Suttle,
embracing.
In sharp contrast to the stagey and stiff Rice/Irwin kiss, Brown
and Suttle sway in gentle harmony together, locking lips then parting, then returning
to kiss again. In between kisses they smile, they laugh, they josh with each
other. For the first time, we see two normal, unaffected people close up, a
refreshing blast from the past that belies all the staid and awkward filmmaking
of that period, and eloquently contradicts all the white-promulgated
stereotypes about African American behavior common at the time. It’s a breath
of fresh air.
The National Film Rregistry
Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National
Film Registry in chronological order.
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