The very first porn movie in cinema history
Believe it or not, there was a time when merely showing a toilet on screen was enough for the general public to shriek in displeasure and the censors to ban the material quicker than you can say ‘nudity’. Of course, much has changed since then, with nudity and pornographic material becoming totally normal in contemporary society, rearing its head in erotic arthouse movies as well as explicit online videos.
It has certainly taken a long time for the media to get to this rather liberated position, however, with movies having battled the censors for generations as the establishment sought to quash indecent images and films. Steadily, attitudes towards nudity began to change as the industry neared the middle of the 20th century, and the ‘free love’ movement of the 1960s took hold, subsequently changing how media was consumed in the Western world.
The erotic Andy Warhol film Blue Movie was important in driving through this change, with the seminal movie in the ‘Golden Age of Porn’ being the first to depict explicit sex in the USA. Still, Blue Movie wouldn’t compare to the influence of Gerard Damiano’s Deep Throat, released in 1972, with the film helping to popularise obscenity, leading to the likes of Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Jack Nicholson and Frank Sinatra to all publicly admit to having seen it.
So, what was the movie that sparked the idea that pornographic movies could exist in the first place? Going way back to the start of cinema in the 20th century, the likes of 1907’s El Satario and 1896’s The Kiss come to mind, but there was one other film released shortly before this, which takes the smutty crown.
Le Coucher de la Mariée, which translates to The Bridegroom’s Dilemma, was first screened in Paris in 1896 and was directed by Albert Kirchner. Considered to be the oldest existing porn movie, the film, which stars the French actor Louise Willy, is pretty tame in comparison to the explicit material available in modern times but was considered the height of controversy upon its release.
At only seven minutes long, Le Coucher de la Mariée can’t truly be said to have a story, with the general gist of the film following a newly married couple looking to consummate their love. Preparing for the occasion, the bride goes behind a folding screen to get undressed, leaving the husband to leer, unable to fully view the details of what she’s actually doing.
Despite being the very first porn movie, the actress never actually appears nude, reflecting just how foreign the idea of cinematic nudity was to audiences at the time.
The people of the 1890s would indeed swoon if they were to see the extent to which the porn industry has evolved since Le Coucher de la Mariée, but there’s no doubt that Albert Kirchner allowed the industry to walk before it could run over a century later.
