Watch the coming attractions trailers in any movie house today, especially as the summer season approaches, and you'll see and hear lots of explosions. But in case you thought this obsession with cinematic pyrotechnics was something new, take a look at the first two decades of film, 1895-1915, and you'll find that movie-makers have always enjoyed blowing up stuff. In early movies, right up through Chaplin's Dough and Dynamite (1914) and Work (1915), explosions were often played for comedy. It seems that the First World War changed things, for a while, anyway, but once memories of the war began to fade, explosions became funny again.
At any rate, this very early and very brief film, The Finish of Bridget McKeen, is a pioneering attempt at film comedy. In 1901 films often consisted of only a single shot, but this one has two, and the second one serves as the punchline. In the first shot we see Bridget, a husky Irish maid (played perhaps by a man in drag?). She's in the kitchen, working before a canvas backdrop: the window, chair, potted plant, and pots hanging from hooks, are all obviously painted. But the stove Bridget is trying to light is real, and we can see that she's having difficulty with it. She decides to douse the stove with Kerosine. Instantly, there is an explosion, and Bridget flies up into the air. Pieces of the stove fall from the sky, and then so does Bridget herself, in the form of a dummy. This shot cross-fades with the second and last shot, a painted image of Bridget's gravestone, which reads: Here Lies the Remains of Bridget McKeen, Who Started a Fire With Kerosine.
Like I said, it's very brief. And not exactly sophisticated, but it was probably considered pretty funny at the time.
At any rate, this very early and very brief film, The Finish of Bridget McKeen, is a pioneering attempt at film comedy. In 1901 films often consisted of only a single shot, but this one has two, and the second one serves as the punchline. In the first shot we see Bridget, a husky Irish maid (played perhaps by a man in drag?). She's in the kitchen, working before a canvas backdrop: the window, chair, potted plant, and pots hanging from hooks, are all obviously painted. But the stove Bridget is trying to light is real, and we can see that she's having difficulty with it. She decides to douse the stove with Kerosine. Instantly, there is an explosion, and Bridget flies up into the air. Pieces of the stove fall from the sky, and then so does Bridget herself, in the form of a dummy. This shot cross-fades with the second and last shot, a painted image of Bridget's gravestone, which reads: Here Lies the Remains of Bridget McKeen, Who Started a Fire With Kerosine.
Like I said, it's very brief. And not exactly sophisticated, but it was probably considered pretty funny at the time.
