The Finish of Bridget McKeen

1901 Comedy 1 minute Directed by Edwin S. Porter

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About The Finish of Bridget McKeen

Bridget McKeen comes into the kitchen smiling, loads the stove with wood and coal, and strikes a match. The fire will not catch. She blows through the grate. Still nothing. She pours kerosene from the can into the stove. The blast sends her through the ceiling. An arm, a leg, her head, another arm, and her trunk drop back onto the set. The scene dissolves to a graveyard. The stone reads, in the Library of Congress copy, "Here Lie the Remains of Bridget McKeen, Who Started a Fire with Kerosene."

Cast & crew

More about The Finish of Bridget McKeen

Edwin S. Porter directed and photographed the comedy for Edison. Thomas A. Edison copyrighted it on 1 March 1901, H1493. Edison released it on 2 March 1901. It is 75 feet. Porter used a male actor as Bridget and a stop-motion swap to a dummy at the explosion. It was shot in a New York studio. The Edison catalogue's epitaph said "Here lies the body of Bridget McKeen, who lighted the fire with kerosene." AFI notes that the catalogue writer misquoted the stone.

Themes

Making

Porter keeps the joke in one kitchen: the match fails, the kerosene can comes out, and a dummy replaces the actor for the blast.

Look

Porter shot the kitchen himself and used stop-motion to replace the actor with a dummy at the explosion, then dissolved to a painted graveyard.

Music

Silent.

Preservation

A print survives and is in the public domain in the United States. The Library of Congress catalogue describes the tombstone wording.

Notes

  • The Edison blurb ends by calling the picture "A winner.
  • The cook is a stock Irish domestic of the vaudeville stage, played here by a man.
  • The body comes down in pieces before the dissolve to the painted cemetery.
  • Silent Era lists the film as public domain in the United States.
  • A print exists.

Scenes

  • Bridget pours the kerosene can into the cold stove.
  • Her arm, leg, head, and trunk drop back after the blast.
  • The dissolve lands on the graveyard stone.

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (The Finish of Bridget McKeen (1901).webm)

Quotes

Here Lie the Remains of Bridget McKeen, Who Started a Fire with Kerosene.

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