Carmencita
About Carmencita
Spanish dancer Carmencita, in a dress with a flying skirt and white heels, performs a short stage routine against a plain ground. She spins, kicks, and smiles at the camera, then finishes the turn.
Cast & crew
More about Carmencita
William K.L. Dickson produced it for the Edison Manufacturing Company and William Heise ran the camera. They filmed Carmencita in the Black Maria between 10 and 16 March 1894. The picture was made for the Kinetoscope, not a projector theater.
Themes
Background
The Holland brothers opened a Kinetoscope parlor at 1155 Broadway, New York, on 14 April 1894. By summer, Carmencita was playing in a parlor at the New Jersey resort of Asbury Park.
In film history
The Newark Evening News of 17 July 1894 reported that state senator James A. Bradley, founder of Asbury Park, objected to a glimpse of Carmencita's ankles and lace. Mayor Ten Broeck ordered the exhibitor to pull the film. It was replaced by Boxing Cats. Film histories treat that order as the first recorded case of motion-picture censorship in the United States.
Making
The Black Maria at West Orange was a tar-paper studio on a turntable, with a roof that opened toward the sun. Carmencita was one of the vaudeville and circus turns Dickson and Heise recorded there for the Kinetoscope parlors.
Look
William Heise photographed her in the Black Maria on 35mm, a fixed frontal view, about 21 seconds when projected at 30 frames per second. The Library of Congress print is 38 feet.
Technique
Shot on the Edison Kinetograph for the 1.33:1 frame and printed for Kinetoscope loops.
Music
Silent. It was shown in a Kinetoscope, a peep-hole viewer with no soundtrack.
Preservation
The Library of Congress holds a 35mm viewing print, 38 feet, silent, black and white, renumbered from FEC 8116 to FYA 1155. Charles Musser catalogs it in Edison Motion Pictures, 1890–1900, page 94.
Notes
- Charles Musser writes that she was the first woman in front of an Edison camera and may have been the first woman in a motion picture made in the United States.
- The routine was one she had danced at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York since February 1890.
- The Library of Congress viewing print is 38 feet of 35mm, about 21 seconds at 30 frames per second.
- John Singer Sargent painted her in 1890 as La Carmencita.
- Musser's Edison catalogue describes her swaying and pirouetting "with a whirl of flying skirts.
Scenes
- Carmencita spins so the skirt flies, then kicks and drops into a last pose, all in about 21 seconds.
Influenced by
- Carmencita's act at Koster and Bial's Music Hall, New York, from February 1890
Also available
- Library of Congress (item 00694116)
