Carmencita

Watching a film like this, it becomes fairly obvious that from the very first days of the cinema the camera was to be given a voyeuristic male eye. Filmed before projectors had been invented, this 24-second short would have been viewed in a dedicated parlour through one of Edison's kinetoscopes. It's a simple film of one woman dancing in front of a black screen. She was quite famous in her day, apparently, but she isn't particularly graceful here. The film was probably shot at Edison's Black Maria studio in West Orange. It was banned in some places because of the 'daring' display of leg - and has the distinction of being title number 0000001 in IMDb's listings

This short film was included several years ago in a documentary about Thomas Edison and his early movie-making experiments. It's timeless - an absolute classic!

The video itself is jumpy and splotchy, and primitive by even the earliest silent film standards. But by anyone's measure, the dancer is amazingly good, and this peek into the distant past is well worth watching, if the opportunity arises.

It would be nice if someone put together for commercial sale a collection of very early experimental film projects like this one. Few are likely to be as fascinating as this, but it's amazing to see how dramatically video technology has changed - and how relatively little change there has been in our entertainment preferences.

This film is part of the series of short Edison films featuring circus and vaudeville acts. Subject in this movie is the American dancer Carmencita. She was quite popular as a dancer at the time and a much asked painting subject for painters. She was also the first every woman to appear in front of the camera in an Edison film, which also makes her the first every woman to appear in an American shot movie. But that's about as historically interesting as this movie gets.

The image quality isn't the greatest but the movements look at all times smooth and that's of course what was most important for Edison and Co. at the time. Camencita shows some twirling, with kicks and high arm movements. Her arms got out of the frame at times and the camera also didn't seemed to be steady. Perphaps it was standing on the same stage as Carmencita was dancing on, which caused the light camera shaking?

Interesting for those wanting to check out the early Edison Manufacturing Company films, but it's nothing too great or significant.

6/10

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This is the first movie in what quickly became one of the most popular genres in the earliest years of motion pictures. Many of Edison's earliest Kinetoscope films featured popular dancers, the best known probably being Annabelle (Whitford) Moore. But "Carmencita" was the first such feature and, as best as anyone has been able to determine, the dancer herself also became the first woman to appear in an American-made movie.

The dance routine itself is similar in style and quality to most of the other movies of its kind and era. The completely dark background makes "Carmencita" herself the full focus of attention. Her appeal is said to have been based as much on her energy and fervor as on her actual skill in dancing, and even with the limitations of 1890s cinematography, it's easy to tell that she is enthusiastic about what she is doing. Her stage routine was probably even livelier.

It's not hard to guess why this kind of movie was so popular in its time. This and similar features could provide something worth seeing within the very limited running time of the earliest movies. Some of the later movies of popular dancers display more film-making experience, but "Carmencita" got the genre off to a lively start.

Carmencita (1894)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Infamous Edison short, which features the title dancer, quite famous at the time, doing one of her dances. The film runs only 24-seconds but who today could really imagine how much trouble this film would get into with such a short running time. The movie was famous because it came under a lot of censorship issues wherever it would be played. The most famous incident happened in Boston where it was pulled from theaters after a preacher complained that it was sinful. We only see a brief bit of the dancer's leg (below the knee) so that should tell you something. There's certainly nothing great here but from a historical standpoint this is a very important film.