The Kiss

1896
William Heise — USA — Actuality
The first kiss ever filmed

At eighteen seconds long, this is essentially cinema's very first kiss and its very first scandal in the same breath. Chicago publisher Herbert S. Stone called it "absolutely disgusting" and demanded police intervention, one of the earliest calls for film censorship in American history. It predates every other film on this site, reenacting the stage finale of the Broadway hit The Widow Jones just one year after commercial film exhibition began.

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