After the Ball
About After the Ball
A woman comes home from a ball. Her maid undresses her, the nudity faked with a body stocking, and helps her into a bath, pouring water over her. The maid then wraps her in a robe and dries her.
Cast & crew
More about After the Ball
Star Film number 128. Jehanne d'Alcy plays the bather and Jane Brady, a music-hall actress, the maid. They worked outdoors, with the backdrop hung on a peach-garden wall. The glass studio was already built but not yet usable, because the walls were still being reinforced.
Themes
In film history
A one-minute bathroom scene sold as a Star Film, with the nude body played by an actress in a stocking rather than by an uncovered performer.
Making
According to d'Alcy, as told to her granddaughter Madeleine Malthête-Méliès, dark sand stood in for the bath water because she was cold in the body stocking.
Look
Méliès photographed it in daylight against a cloth backdrop on an outdoor wall, the camera held in one position as on a stage.
Preservation
A print is on Wikimedia Commons under the title Après le bal (1897).
Notes
- The French title is Après le bal. The film has also gone under the title Le Bain de la Parisienne.
- Eugène Pirou had already filmed a similar staged bath, Le Bain de la Parisienne, in late 1896.
- Georges Méliès is credited as director, writer, producer, and cameraman.
Scenes
- The maid pours water over the woman in the tub, then covers her with a robe.
Influenced by
- Le Bain de la Parisienne (1896)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Après le bal (1897).webm)
