The Kiss in the Tunnel
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About The Kiss in the Tunnel
In a railway carriage, a man and a woman kiss while the train is in a tunnel. George Albert Smith plays the man. Laura Bayley, his wife, plays the woman. The shot lasts just over a minute. Warwick Trading Company sold it on its own and told exhibitors to cut it into a phantom ride they already owned, such as Cecil Hepworth's View from an Engine Front – Train Leaving Tunnel (1899).
Cast & crew
More about The Kiss in the Tunnel
George Albert Smith produced, directed, and photographed the carriage scene, released in March 1899. It runs 1 minute 3 seconds. It is Bayley's first film. Smith did not sell a finished tunnel picture. He sold the middle shot. Exhibitors were expected to splice it between views from the front of a train, so the kiss would play as what the passengers do in the dark.
Themes
In film history
Exhibitors were told to drop one staged shot into a train film they already had, so the kiss reads as a scene inside the journey.
Making
The couple sit in a staged carriage. The darkness is the excuse for the kiss, and the tunnel footage, when an exhibitor added it, came from a separate ride film.
Reviews
Frank Gray has called the splice a new understanding of continuity editing. Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline describes Smith looking for something sharper than a plain view from an engine.
Look
Smith photographed a single interior of a railway compartment. The moving tunnel, when present, is another cameraman's phantom ride, cut in later.
Technique
One performed shot was sold to be inserted into an existing actuality, so two films become a three-part scene.
Preservation
The carriage shot survives and is usually seen spliced to a phantom-ride view of a train entering and leaving a tunnel.
Notes
- Also titled A Kiss in the Tunnel.
- Michael Brooke, writing for BFI Screenonline, describes the kiss as the spice Smith added to the phantom-ride genre.
- Film historian Frank Gray treats the insert as an early use of continuity editing: one shot placed inside another film.
- Hepworth's engine-front views were the example Warwick named. They were not shot for Smith's gag.
Scenes
- Smith and Bayley kiss in the compartment for the length of the supposed tunnel.
Influenced by
- View from an Engine Front – Train Leaving Tunnel (1899)
