Le Coucher de la Mariée

1896 French film

Le coucher de la mariée

Frame from the film

Directed by| Léar (Albert Kirchner)
Produced by| Eugène Pirou
Starring| Louise Willy

Release date

* November 1896 (1896-11)

Running time

| 7 minutes (only 2 minutes survive)
Country| France
Language| Silent

Le Coucher de la Mariée (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.[1] The film was first screened in Paris in November 1896, within a year of the first public screening of a projected motion picture.[2] The film was produced by Eugène Pirou and directed by Albert Kirchner (under the pseudonym "Léar").[3] It features a risqué (for the time) striptease, but does not end in nudity.

## Content

[edit]

Surviving footage from Le Coucher de la Mariée

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, a blouse. The husband does not stay in place, sometimes mopping his front, sometimes reading a newspaper, sometimes having lecherous looks above the folding screen. The actors send numerous glances towards the camera.

## History of the movie

[edit]

The original film has been estimated to be around seven minutes long,[1] but it had degraded to a poor condition in the French Film Archives until it was found in 1996. Only two minutes of the film have survived, which includes the undressing sequence.[4]

The film was shot in a theater set, and featured actress Louise Willy [af; ca; fr; vo][5] 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[6] 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 two minutes have survived from the original seven minutes, it is impossible to see more than the striptease.

## See also

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* El Satario
* List of incomplete or partially lost films

## References

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1. ^ a b Phil De Semlyen. "Film Studies 101: The A-Z of the birth of cinema". Empire. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
2. ^ 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
3. ^ Le coucher de la mariée: pantomime en un acte. Paris: E. Fromont, 1895
4. ^ Alex Duval Smith (13 November 1996). "Tremendous amount of prudishness' over porn, says journalist". London Observer Service. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2015 - via Newspapers.com.
5. ^ Richard Abel, Encyclopedia of early cinema Archived 3 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Taylor & Francis, 2005, ISBN 978-0-415-23440-5, p. 518
6. ^ Dubé, Paul; Marchioro, Jacques. "Les frères Isola – Souvenirs". dutempsdescerisesauxfeuillesmortes.net (in French). Archived from the original on 16 August 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2016.

## External links

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* Le Coucher de la Mariée at IMDb