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Something Good – Negro Kiss

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Something Good – Negro Kiss
Directed byWilliam Selig
StarringSaint Suttle
Gertie Brown
Distributed bySelig Polyscope through Sears & Roebuck
Release date
  • 1898 (1898)
Running time
29 seconds (1st rediscovered version)
49 seconds (2nd rediscovered version)
CountryUnited States
Languagesilent

Something Good – Negro Kiss is a short silent film from 1898 of a couple kissing and holding hands. It is believed to depict the earliest on-screen kiss involving African Americans and is known for departing from the prevalent and purely stereotypical presentation of racist caricature in popular culture at the time it was made.[1][2] The film was a lost film until its rediscovery in 2017, and was added to the American National Film Registry in 2018.[3][4]

Production

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In Something Good, a well-dressed African American couple exchanges several kisses. Between kisses they hold and swing each other's hands and laugh together. The chemistry in the performances is described as "palpable,"[3] conveying an "unmistakable sense of naturalness, pleasure, and amusement."[2] A slightly longer version came to light in 2021; this version shows the couple before they embrace, and includes the "prelude before the kisses, with wooing, refusal and negotiation.”[5] The longer version was produced at the same time and may have been produced for the international market. Research notes that alternate versions were sold and separately listed with varying lengths. The longer version is also from a perspective point further away and inverted, with the actors on opposite sides from the first version, although whether this was a mistake in production or reproduction is unknown. Scholars also perceive the longer film as more “vaudevillesque”, with more acting work, than the romance of the first.[6]

When it was produced, it was likely presented with other shorts as a comedy vignette, a take-off on the 1896 film The Kiss. Something Good starred stage entertainers Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown. Suttle was a composer for popular theater and Brown a vaudeville circuit actress. The two also performed as dance partners.[1] They were part of a group known as The Rag-Time Four, who performed variations on the popular cakewalk dance. They may have been at the film studio to perform in a cakewalk vignette, playing the film as impromptu.[7]

The film was made in Chicago by director and producer William Selig, a film pioneer, who also had prior experience with staged minstrel shows.[1] He used his own version of a Lumière cinématographe camera to shoot Something Good.[2] Selig distributed the Selig Polyscope Company film through the Sears & Roebuck mail order catalog.[3][1]

Full, original fragment of film from 2017.

Rediscovery

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A 20 second long negative of Something Good's nitrate film was rediscovered at an estate sale in Louisiana by an archivist from the University of Southern California in 2017.[1] Reviewing the technical details of the film, thereby dating it with the film stock and perforation holes,[6] catalogs and sales material, scholars at USC and the University of Chicago were able to identify the film's production history.[2] The USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive claims the copyright to the restored version of the film, which it published on Vimeo.[8]

Extended version of the film, found in Norway in 2021.

Four years later, in 2021, a 49-second film held in the National Library of Norway in Oslo was identified as an extended version of Something Good. At the time of its accession by the Library, it was misidentified and cataloged as a Lumière film. It is one of the oldest films in the National Library collection.[5]

This copy was included in a reel found in the town of Leksvik, and was housed in a barn until authorities said the films posed a risk of fire. Oral history suggests the film came to Norway when a Norwegian filmmaker wanted to assemble a projector in the early days of film and brought home film-reels from the US. News of the 2017 discovery in the United States caused the National Library of Norway to reexamine it and correct its provenance.[6] Though scanned twice, the film still shows spots and malformations, Films at the time were often poorly produced, and those spots may always have been there. The film negative is deteriorating, held in the arctic facilities in the north of the country.

The film was listed in catalogs of lost films before its rediscovery, although details concerning the film, other than its title and director, were unknown. Since almost all surviving films from that time are overtly racist, it was usually just listed as a lost race film.[9]

Further reading

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  • Field, Allyson Nadia (2021). "Archival Rediscovery and the Production of History: Solving the Mystery of Something Good—Negro Kiss (1898)". Film History: An International Journal. 33 (2): 1–33. doi:10.2979/filmhistory.33.2.01. S2CID 236779328. Project MUSE 799504.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Bowean, Lolly (December 22, 2018). "Tracing Chicago origins of 'Something Good,' a recently discovered film clip depicting first onscreen kiss between two African-Americans". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  2. ^ a b c d Wang, Jack (December 12, 2018). "Silent film of black couple's kiss discovered, added to National Film Registry". UChicago News. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  3. ^ a b c "Brief Descriptions and Expanded Essays of National Film Registry Titles". Film Registry – National Film Preservation Board – Library of Congress. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  4. ^ "2018 additions to the National Film Registry". CBS News. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  5. ^ a b "New version of first ever African-American screen kiss discovered in Norway". Reuters. February 26, 2021.
  6. ^ a b c Sciences, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and. "A Piece of American Film History in Norway". A.frame. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
  7. ^ Garcia-Navarro, Lulu (December 16, 2018). "Library Of Congress Honors Groundbreaking 1898 Film Depicting Black Joy". NPR – Weekend Edition Sunday. Retrieved December 27, 2018.
  8. ^ "Something Good Negro Kiss 1898 Restored". Vimeo. December 7, 2018. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  9. ^ Obenson, Tambay (November 26, 2021). "'Something Good — Negro Kiss': Solving Its Historical Mystery and How to Account for 'Lost' Black Films". IndieWire. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
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