(Bedtime for the Bride or The Bridegroom's Dilemma) is a French erotic short film considered to be one of the first erotic films ever made. The film was first screened in Paris in November 1896, within a year of the first public screening of a projected motion picture.Ramsaye, Terry (1926), A Million and One Nights: A History of the Motion Picture Through 1926, Simon and Schuster Essandess paperback reprint, 1964, Location at Broadway and Thirty-Fourth: p. 117; 20-foot screen and gilded frame, p. 232 The film was produced by Eugène Pirou and directed by Albert Kirchner (under the pseudonym "Léar").. Paris: E. Fromont, 1895 It features a risqué striptease, but does not end in nudity.

Content

A newlywed couple is in front of their wedding-bed after their wedding. The husband goes into raptures in front of his new wife, who simpers. She then asks him to withdraw while she undresses and he puts a folding screen between them. She removes one by one the many layers of clothes she wears — a jacket, a dress, underskirts, sub-underskirts, and a blouse. The husband does not stay in place, sometimes mopping his brow, sometimes reading a newspaper, sometimes having lecherous looks above the folding screen. The actors send numerous glances towards the camera.

History of the movie The original film has been estimated to be around seven minutes long, This quotation is the entire relevant section, although only a small portion of the entire article. but it had degraded to a poor condition in the French Film Archives until it was found in 1996. Only 3:46 minutes of the film have survived, which includes the undressing sequence.

The film was shot in a theater set, and featured actress Richard Abel, Encyclopedia of early cinema , Taylor & Francis, 2005, , p. 518 who performs the striptease. It is the direct adaptation of a theater show with the same name and the same cast. The show was very popular at the time, at Olympia Theater (Paris). It was a pantomime, quite risqué, but still not explicit as the actress was not nude. However, because only less than four minutes have survived from the original seven minutes, it is impossible to see more than the striptease.

Legacy

There were several imitators that followed, such as Le Coucher de la mariée ou Triste nuit de noces (1899).

Pathé produced at least 4 different versions of the film between 1897 to 1907, including two also with Louise Willy.

Despite its tame content, the film has in modern times been described (perhaps facetiously) as a "", "porn", a "stag film", and Pirou as the inventor thereof.

See also El Satario List of incomplete or partially lost films

References

External links