The Kiss in the Tunnel

A Kiss in the Tunnel (1899)

The camera is stationed on a railroad track outside a tunnel. The camera then begins to move in the camera when we get an edit to a man and woman on the train kissing. We then get another edit as the camera is now moving out of the tunnel.

A KISS IN THE TUNNEL proved to be so popular that another film with the same title and the same subject was released the very same year. Talk about a fast remake! Actually, this here was quite common back in the day. This short is actually rather creative with the way it uses editing to somewhat tell a story. The use of coming into the tunnel, having the kissing and then going out of the tunnel was certainly creative for its day and makes this a rather important picture for early cinema.

A cheeky little short but also highlights film techniques that we now taken for granted.

The train enters the tunnel but we see this from our point of view shot and as we head down the tunnel we see the train going the other direction.

Once the train enters the tunnel we switch from the exterior location to the carriage scene that has been filmed in the studio.

Here we see a man and woman, presumably married. The man is smoking and as the train enters the tunnel he makes a daring move to kiss the woman.

A simplistic film and presumably seen as risqué at the time and no doubt based on a lantern slide show.

A man and a woman exchange a kiss in the tunnel. After they read again. Smith is a filmaker of the school of Brighton and is among the first to use the alternate editing , that takes up different angles of the same location. One of the first kisses in the history of cinema is very fleeting and passenger.

You see a train exiting the tunnel, and then you see - from the train's perspective - another train entering the tunnel from the opposite direction. Then the view switches to inside the train where a couple exchange a few kisses. This was actually shot in a studio. Finally, you are seeing things from the train's perspective again as the train exits the tunnel.

The copy I saw was very clear, almost appearing to be a film made today and altered to look like it was made in 1899. But of course it is clear. All the information is there in a 35 mm print (16 mm came much later). The image is uncompressed, a resolution equivalent of probably 6K. 35mm was used from the beginning, and it became standard around 1905. Bad resolution on youtube is usually because of the up-loader. A bad VHS-print in 480p is still a bad VHS print. You can't improve the image by using a higher resolution, the information is gone forever. You can rely on BFI to use the best methods.

The couple kissing was played by director G. A. Smith and his wife. Smith made a different version of this same film later in 1899.

I'm going to be fair with both versions of this comedic subject: I liked the Phantom Ride in this film better, but the kiss in the Bamforth film (see my review for that film) is more romantic. However, BOTH are extremely important in the history of cinema because in 1899 most films were only one shot long--and this film has three: the train going in the tunnel, the kiss, and the train coming out. Yes, the plot is really weak, but it's actually well above average for 1899.

G. A. Smith would later become even more important for his uses of closeups and cutting, but even by 1899 he was already getting pretty innovative, as evidenced by this movie. Both versions of this 'comedy' are worth looking at simply for comparison, but for modern audiences today there's nothing especially great to see in either one.