Trapeze Disrobing Act
About Trapeze Disrobing Act
A camera sits in a vaudeville house. Charmion, in evening dress, works on a trapeze while two rubes watch from a box. She takes off jacket, hat, corset, shoes, stockings, and garters and throws pieces to the men, who fight over them. She finishes the act in tights, trunks, and a camisole. When the stockings come off, the Edison catalogue says, the rubes jump from their seats.
Cast & crew
More about Trapeze Disrobing Act
Edison Manufacturing filmed strongwoman Laverie Vallee, billed as Charmion, in November 1901. Thomas A. Edison copyrighted it on November 11, 1901, as H10634. Silent Era credits direction to Edwin S. Porter and George S. Fleming, both with question marks, and names Porter as cinematographer. Wikidata lists both men as directors. The catalog text says 100 feet. Silent Era says 95 or 100 feet. The Library of Congress times a copy at 2 minutes 18 seconds at 14 frames per second. Charles Musser, in Before the Nickelodeon, writes that it was made for burlesque houses and all-male smokers.
Themes
Background
Edison was still recording vaudeville turns as single-shot films in 1901. Charmion's act already mixed strength, aerial work, and a strip down to a leotard for middle-class houses.
Making
The set is a stage plus one theater box, shot at Edison's 21st Street studio so both the aerialist and the two spectators stay in frame.
Look
Edwin S. Porter is credited by Silent Era as cinematographer. The lens covers the stage and the box at screen left, as if from a seat in the house.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A 35mm paper print survives in the Library of Congress film archive.
Notes
- Charmion, born Laverie Cooper Vallee (1875–1949), had been doing the disrobing trapeze act on stage since the late 1890s. Her New York vaudeville debut was Christmas Day 1897.
- The Library of Congress summary has her hang upside down to slip off a petticoat.
- Musser argues that the two men in the box license the viewer's looking.
- A paper print is in the Library of Congress, in the AFI/paper-print collection.
Scenes
- Charmion flips, then throws her corset to the men in the box.
- She hangs upside down and drops the petticoat.
- The two rubes leave their seats when the stockings come off.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Trapeze Disrobing Act (1901).webm)
- Library of Congress paper print
