Le coucher de la mariée

1907 Comedy 7 minutes

About Le coucher de la mariée

On the wedding night the bride asks her husband to wait. He sets a folding screen between them. She takes off a jacket, a dress, and layers of skirts while he fidgets, mops his face, reads a paper, and peeks over the screen. Both keep glancing at the camera. The strip stops short of full nudity.

More about Le coucher de la mariée

The Pathé catalog subject, also issued as The Bride Going to Bed, uses Louise Willy of the Olympia in the pantomime of the same name. A GRIMH listing ties the Willy scenes to Pathé catalog 1059, about 40 meters, with a 1907 Pathé entry among the dates. The set is a bedroom stage.

Themes

  • A wedding night played as a pantomime
  • Clothes taken off one layer at a time
  • A groom who cannot stay on his side of the screen
  • wedding night
  • Louise Willy
  • screen
  • Pathé
  • Olympia
  • pantomime

Making

Willy played the same bedroom pantomime on the Olympia stage before the camera recorded it.

Look

The scene is one bedroom set, with the screen used as a tease between the bride and the groom.

Preservation

About two minutes of the undressing are what later accounts say remain of a film once timed near seven minutes.

Notes

  • The Olympia pantomime was risqué and stopped short of nudity. The film follows that limit.
  • Accounts of the surviving material describe about two minutes, mainly the undressing, from a longer original.

Scenes

  • The bride sends the groom behind a screen and starts on the buttons.
  • He reads, sweats, and looks over the top.

Influenced by

  • The Olympia pantomime Le coucher de la mariée