The May Irwin Kiss: The First Kiss in Cinema

Cinema has had a very healthy share of kisses that have been burned into the public's memory, and to be honest, it's not necessary to focus on old classics to find them. However, to identify the first kiss in cinema, we have to travel back to the late nineteenth century. Commissioned by Thomas Edison himself, the short film The May Irwin Kiss shows us May Irwin and John Rice recreating the final scene of a very popular theatrical play of that era. The filming was so controversial that even the Catholic Church asked for its censorship...

If a 19th-century human had the chance to see a film created in the 21st century, they would faint not only from the extreme difference in audiovisual quality but from the content itself. Violence? Sex? In those years, anyone could end up locked up if they were too affectionate with their partner in the open. Obviously, there were special places where one could find deeper pleasures or melt inhibitions, but bringing that to the “young” cinema was a very different story. Still, someone had to give the first cry of rebellion, and believe it or not, it was Thomas Edison, who produced the short “The Kiss,” also known as “The May Irwin Kiss.”

The First Kiss in Cinema

The filming took place at the famous Black Maria space, “the first film studio in the United States,” in April of that year. William Heise was in charge of direction, and Edison chose May Irwin and John Rice, the stars of the play The Widow Jones to repeat the final scene with the kiss in front of his kinetoscope.

The exhibition of The May Irwin Kiss caused a real scandal, with several enthusiasts denouncing the “obscenity” of the kiss, and with the Catholic Church demanding “censorship and moral reforms.” The newspapers of the time didn't do anything but add additional fuel to the fire, calling the kiss “repugnant,” and also asking for police intervention wherever the short was reproduced.

As expected, Edison got away with it, and in just a couple of years at least three more films showing kisses emerged: “Something Good – Negro Kiss” (the first kiss of African Americans in cinema), the British film “The Kiss in the Tunnel,” and another short called “The Kiss” from 1900.

In 1999, “The May Irwin Kiss” was declared culturally significant by the Library of Congress, while “Something Good” received the same treatment in 2018. In the end, the kisses won.