Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Blistering performances.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The year is 1900 and this is a silent, black-and-white film directed by American silent film pioneer Edwin S. Porter. People kissing was a very famous motive back in the days of silent films, but this one here has a warmth to it that lets it stand out in my opinion. I am not sure if they were really in love or just acting, but it looked authentic to me. Other than that you also find out that mustaches and fancy dresses were truly popular at that time still. And it's also not just kissing. They were hugging too. i would say it was good to keep this film under 6ß seconds, so it would not start to drag and I wish I could read their lips what they were saying exactly. Anyway, a cute little short film in my opinion. One of 1900's finest. Recommended.

It's a real shame that Fred Ott's smooch partner here is unknown to history, since she's a real babe compared to the mercenary battle-ax May Irwin from an 1896 Edison Co. offering. Fred Ott obviously also is a younger dude than John C. Rice, so the new century was offering the young & the beautiful, compared to the 1800s old & decrepit. With Jane Doe's final flurry of pecks on the lips, I count 19 total K's here--which beats Justin Verlander on his best day (though probably not our Nolan Ryan!). Though about four of these land on various cheeks, the vast majority are of the lip-to-lip close encounter variety (though no tongue, as far as I can see). Perhaps the oddest thing about this 39.91-second short is the appearance (if you zoom in closely) of a SCREAM mask just behind Jane Doe's left shoulder. If I were a screenwriter, I could probably turn this ghost noticed for the first time 113 years after the fact into a pretty good horror movie starring people such as Daniel Radcliff and Jennifer Lawrence, but I do not have that much free time on my hands right now.

This film is a re-make of the 1898 film THE KISS (also called the MAY IRWIN KISS). This original film was considered 'dirty' or 'offensive' because it was the first commercial film to show any sort of intimacy between a man and a woman. In many locales, it was actually banned despite being a very innocent film. Both films were made by the Edison Studios and are extremely similar. Each lasts less than a minute and consist of a couple kissing. However, as this film was made four years later, the kissing is much more prolonged and intense and the couple was also more attractive. Apparently, the original film generated enough interest to merit a sequel but due to the passage of time, this version generated little controversy.It's really hard to rate a film only lasting about 45 seconds, but I score it relatively low because it is do derivative.

Though not particularly noteworthy in itself, this remake of "The Kiss" is historically of some interest in comparison with the original version. The content is only slightly different, but the responses that the two movies received are interesting. Whereas the 1896 version was met with widespread comment and controversy, inflaming public opinion and permanently changing the careers of the two performers involved, the remake seems to have come and gone with comparatively little disturbance.In comparison with the earlier version, this movie has a different, younger-looking couple, and has a somewhat different feel to it, with the actors seeming a bit more playful and flirtatious than the couple in the original. The degree of intimacy still seems about the same, and if anyone was concerned about the 1896 movie, you would think that they would object to this one also.But perhaps what caused the original controversy was not really the content itself, but the newness of motion pictures. The permanent, re-playable nature of a movie, the intimacy (compared to a stage production) of a mid-range close-up, and the completeness that a movie offers, were all brand new in 1896, but were getting to be a little more familiar in 1900. It still happens today that things that once seemed shocking on film don't seem so outrageous once they become a little more common.