This is quite a sophisticated little feature for its time. Phantom rides, where a camera was fixed to the front of a train and then filmed the passing scenery as the track disappeared beneath it were extremely popular for a while in the late 19th century, and George Albert Smith, one of the Brighton School filmmakers, used this format to fashion a clever little film by inserting a shot between two phantom views of a train entering and leaving a tunnel of a couple (played by Smith and his wife) enjoying a couple of kisses. Metaphors - whether intended or otherwise - abound, and have done ever since, especially in the hands of Hitchcock. It no doubt proved quite saucy to a Victorian audience still conditioned to believe that displays of affection between husband and wife should be confined to the boudoir.
14 Reviews
Brief encounter
AlsExGal2 July 2023
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.
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.
One of two nearly identical films both made in 1899!
planktonrules15 September 2006
I knew that the old-time movie makers often "borrowed" or outright plagiarized from each other, but this is ridiculous! Not only did George Albert Smith make this film in 1899, but Bamforth and Company made a nearly identical film that same year with the same title!!! The worst part about it is that neither film was all that great. And, of the two, the Smith one is slightly less well made.
Like all movies of the 1890s, this one is incredibly brief and almost completely uninteresting to audiences in the 21st century. Only film historians and crazy people like me would watch this brief film (I'm a history teacher and film lover--that's my excuse for watching them BOTH).
Like all movies of the 1890s, this one is incredibly brief and almost completely uninteresting to audiences in the 21st century. Only film historians and crazy people like me would watch this brief film (I'm a history teacher and film lover--that's my excuse for watching them BOTH).
Multiple Shots and Phantom Rides
Cineanalyst2 March 2008
In the beginning of film history, producers didn't control the final appearance of their films as they do today. This was when exhibitors purchased films rather than renting them and when films consisted of a single shot-scene. Soon, producers made multiple one-shot films with a shared theme, but exhibitors could still choose which shots they purchased and how to assemble them into programs. Finally, producers created multi-shot films with complex narratives, placed their own title cards within them, and distributors sold (and, later, rented) these films only as a whole. This film, George Albert Smith's "The Kiss in the Tunnel", is one of the more important and interesting films in this transition.
The British Film Institute (BFI) print that we have today is a three-shot film. The first and last shots are from a phantom ride film by Cecil Hepworth, which had the appropriate title "View from Engine Front - Train Leaving Tunnel" (1899). Phantom rides were an early and popular genre of films. They were a point-of-view (POV) shot from the "perspective" of a moving train. The cameraman would mount the camera to the locomotive and point the camera forward. These films provided a constantly shifted framing of scenery and, thus, were some of the earliest to feature moving camera shots. Reportedly, the phantom ride genre began with the American Mutoscope Company's "The Haverstraw Tunnel" (1897). Additionally, the Lumière Company had largely introduced the moving camera shot by placing the camera on a moving object, like a train or boat, such as in, perhaps the first such film, "Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau" (1896).
Smith made the insert shot, which is supposed to be set in the interior of a railway carriage. Smith specifically made this film, and it was advertised as such, to be edited into a phantom ride film as the train passed through a tunnel--as is the case in the BFI copy. At this time, Hepworth films and Smith films were both distributed by the Warwick Trading Company, which may help explain the marriage of these two films in the BFI print. This arrangement would serve as quite a surprising and comedic experience to viewers accustomed to such one shot, non-fiction, and non-narrative phantom rides, as the 40-foot long scene by Smith shows the director himself and his actress-wife kissing under the privacy of the tunnel's darkness.
The interior scene is primitive in its mise-en-scène; the painted set by Smith's assistant (and often times, actor) Tom Green, including the black-colored windows, is cheap, and the shadows of the actors make it evident that Smith filmed this at an open-air set. Yet, as Frank Gray has pointed out in his essay "The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899), G.A. Smith and the Emergence of the Edited Film in England", this film was pivotal in the transition from single-shot films to multi-shot ones and more elaborate narratives, as well as in the transition of editorial control away from exhibitors and to producers. Moreover, the film demonstrates how shots filmed at different locations and at different times may be edited together to appear spatially and temporally continuous and how the juxtaposition of two separate continuous actions cohesively forms a narrative. This was a groundbreaking expansion of film grammar at the time.
Smith would continue to introduce further innovations in scene dissection and continuity editing in his subsequent productions. His films and those by other early British filmmakers had an immense influence on the work of others--perhaps most importantly on Edwin S. Porter for the Edison Company in America and Ferdinand Zecca for the Pathé Company in France. Porter and Zecca both remade this particular film. One innovation of these two remakes is that they use matte shots for passing scenery through the compartment's window. Zecca's film "Flirt en chemin de fer" (1901) is otherwise (according to Charles Musser and Tom Gunning, who I'll trust since I haven't seen it) a straightforward remake of Smith's film. Porter's film "What Happened in the Tunnel" (1903), however, includes a racist joke involving the switching of seats between a young woman with her mammy as the suitor attempts to kiss the young woman in the darkness of the tunnel. In Lubin's remake "Love in a Railroad Train" (1902), his joke addition involved the kissing of the bottom of the woman's baby. Riley and Bamforth Films also remade Smith's film with the same title and within the same year. That remake, however, wasn't to be part of a phantom ride. Its bookend shots are stationary, objective perspectives unattached to the train and are of the train entering and exiting the tunnel. In addition to the more low-key acting in it, it doesn't seem to serve the same humorous purpose. The interior set is better, though.
The British Film Institute (BFI) print that we have today is a three-shot film. The first and last shots are from a phantom ride film by Cecil Hepworth, which had the appropriate title "View from Engine Front - Train Leaving Tunnel" (1899). Phantom rides were an early and popular genre of films. They were a point-of-view (POV) shot from the "perspective" of a moving train. The cameraman would mount the camera to the locomotive and point the camera forward. These films provided a constantly shifted framing of scenery and, thus, were some of the earliest to feature moving camera shots. Reportedly, the phantom ride genre began with the American Mutoscope Company's "The Haverstraw Tunnel" (1897). Additionally, the Lumière Company had largely introduced the moving camera shot by placing the camera on a moving object, like a train or boat, such as in, perhaps the first such film, "Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau" (1896).
Smith made the insert shot, which is supposed to be set in the interior of a railway carriage. Smith specifically made this film, and it was advertised as such, to be edited into a phantom ride film as the train passed through a tunnel--as is the case in the BFI copy. At this time, Hepworth films and Smith films were both distributed by the Warwick Trading Company, which may help explain the marriage of these two films in the BFI print. This arrangement would serve as quite a surprising and comedic experience to viewers accustomed to such one shot, non-fiction, and non-narrative phantom rides, as the 40-foot long scene by Smith shows the director himself and his actress-wife kissing under the privacy of the tunnel's darkness.
The interior scene is primitive in its mise-en-scène; the painted set by Smith's assistant (and often times, actor) Tom Green, including the black-colored windows, is cheap, and the shadows of the actors make it evident that Smith filmed this at an open-air set. Yet, as Frank Gray has pointed out in his essay "The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899), G.A. Smith and the Emergence of the Edited Film in England", this film was pivotal in the transition from single-shot films to multi-shot ones and more elaborate narratives, as well as in the transition of editorial control away from exhibitors and to producers. Moreover, the film demonstrates how shots filmed at different locations and at different times may be edited together to appear spatially and temporally continuous and how the juxtaposition of two separate continuous actions cohesively forms a narrative. This was a groundbreaking expansion of film grammar at the time.
Smith would continue to introduce further innovations in scene dissection and continuity editing in his subsequent productions. His films and those by other early British filmmakers had an immense influence on the work of others--perhaps most importantly on Edwin S. Porter for the Edison Company in America and Ferdinand Zecca for the Pathé Company in France. Porter and Zecca both remade this particular film. One innovation of these two remakes is that they use matte shots for passing scenery through the compartment's window. Zecca's film "Flirt en chemin de fer" (1901) is otherwise (according to Charles Musser and Tom Gunning, who I'll trust since I haven't seen it) a straightforward remake of Smith's film. Porter's film "What Happened in the Tunnel" (1903), however, includes a racist joke involving the switching of seats between a young woman with her mammy as the suitor attempts to kiss the young woman in the darkness of the tunnel. In Lubin's remake "Love in a Railroad Train" (1902), his joke addition involved the kissing of the bottom of the woman's baby. Riley and Bamforth Films also remade Smith's film with the same title and within the same year. That remake, however, wasn't to be part of a phantom ride. Its bookend shots are stationary, objective perspectives unattached to the train and are of the train entering and exiting the tunnel. In addition to the more low-key acting in it, it doesn't seem to serve the same humorous purpose. The interior set is better, though.
The school of Brighton
luigicavaliere17 February 2019
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.
Dare a kiss
Prismark103 May 2014
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.
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.
No boundaries in darkness
Horst_In_Translation14 October 2013
Warning: Spoilers
We see a train passing by to our right and quickly realize we are on a train as well, or at least the cameraman here is. The previous train just came out of a tunnel and ours is about to get in. As we enter, darkness is everywhere. Quickly the action switches to inside the tunnel and we see man and a woman sitting on opposing seats. The man wearing a cylinder gives a couple innocent kisses to the lady, probably his wife, yet displays of affection in public weren't really too common back in the day while you see people making out everywhere 115 years later. As the end of the tunnel is reached, the two sit back again and behave "normal" by reading books. Okay short film, but I don't think it's really that relevant in cinema history as some people make it out to be and it's certainly way less explicit then the Bamforth remake from the same year.
Acute comedy about social codes and potential freedom.
the red duchess22 December 2000
Only a couple of years after the scary documentary 'Arrivee d'un train', and the cinema's gone all Freudian on us. The camera watches as a train emerges from a tunnel, towards which it then moves, placed as it is on the engine. This documentary shot cuts to a flagrantly artificial set, as a bourgeois couple sit among their many purchases, on their way home after a day's shopping.
In public (out shopping) and in private (at home) they must keep up a rigid, Victorian, bourgeois facade. In a train, though, in a dark tunnel, they are allowed brief liberty, as the husband kisses a protesting, though not unwilling wife, before propriety returns with the tunnelless daylight. This film is given extra frisson by the knowledge that the couple are played by the director and his wife.
This kind of equation of trains with sex would become a cliche, most wittily used by Hitchcock in films like 'The 39 Steps', 'The Lady Vanishes' and 'North by Northwest'. Where this film scores is in its paradoxical awareness - the natural desires of a married couple find expression in an 'artificial' setting, which expresses a truer reality; while the repressive, artificial world of codes, strictures and taboos are equated with the 'natural', when, of course, they are anything but.
The film also links the train, the cinema and sex, the idea of being in the dark and letting your fantasies take off away from society; the difference between public and private blurred by new technologies.
In public (out shopping) and in private (at home) they must keep up a rigid, Victorian, bourgeois facade. In a train, though, in a dark tunnel, they are allowed brief liberty, as the husband kisses a protesting, though not unwilling wife, before propriety returns with the tunnelless daylight. This film is given extra frisson by the knowledge that the couple are played by the director and his wife.
This kind of equation of trains with sex would become a cliche, most wittily used by Hitchcock in films like 'The 39 Steps', 'The Lady Vanishes' and 'North by Northwest'. Where this film scores is in its paradoxical awareness - the natural desires of a married couple find expression in an 'artificial' setting, which expresses a truer reality; while the repressive, artificial world of codes, strictures and taboos are equated with the 'natural', when, of course, they are anything but.
The film also links the train, the cinema and sex, the idea of being in the dark and letting your fantasies take off away from society; the difference between public and private blurred by new technologies.
A Clever, Lively Feature
Snow Leopard1 March 2005
This G.A. Smith film has a lively feel to it, and it also features some clever and imaginative technique. The subject is simple enough, but Smith demonstrates some creative ideas that would have been creditable even in a film-maker of a later generation.
The actual "Kiss in the Tunnel" is the middle part of the movie, and it is preceded by a creative shot from the front of a train as it enters a tunnel, making the audience feel as if they were the ones entering the tunnel. It works quite well, and because Bamforth and Company soon afterwards released a remake with a different opening, you can compare the two to see how well Smith's idea works. It often happens that the implied can be more effective than the overt, and this is one example.
The footage with Smith and his wife is quite lively, and Mrs. Smith seems to have taken particularly well to being on screen. This is not the only feature of Smith's that she added some energy to (another particularly good performance being in "Mary Jane's Mishap"). This one also has something of a gentle, impish suggestiveness that Alfred Hitchcock would have been happy with. All in all, this is a nicely made little feature.
The actual "Kiss in the Tunnel" is the middle part of the movie, and it is preceded by a creative shot from the front of a train as it enters a tunnel, making the audience feel as if they were the ones entering the tunnel. It works quite well, and because Bamforth and Company soon afterwards released a remake with a different opening, you can compare the two to see how well Smith's idea works. It often happens that the implied can be more effective than the overt, and this is one example.
The footage with Smith and his wife is quite lively, and Mrs. Smith seems to have taken particularly well to being on screen. This is not the only feature of Smith's that she added some energy to (another particularly good performance being in "Mary Jane's Mishap"). This one also has something of a gentle, impish suggestiveness that Alfred Hitchcock would have been happy with. All in all, this is a nicely made little feature.
You Know They Boned Afterwards
MisterSisterFister3 November 2018
Interesting for the use of narrative device
bob the moo24 February 2008
I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place but that's about it.
Not unlike my feeling when I saw Lumiere shoot form a leaving train, I was taken by the smooth movement into the tunnel that the film opens with and likewise the exit at the end. I liked it technically but also as a story telling device because it tells the viewer that the middle part of the story in the carriage is occurring in this tunnel. Essentially it has put the viewer on the train. It is an effective narrative tool but you need to remember that at this time there were no set narrative devices like we have now. The conventions of cinematic story telling are so set that we now only notice them when they are shunned. So here this is interesting to watch in regards seeing this early device used.
However the middle section is not as good. A simple static shot that has a man kiss a woman on the cheek with a lot of fuss leading up to it. It is not funny or interesting and seems out of place with the technical strength at the start. Worth a look to appreciate the narrative device but not much more than that.
Not unlike my feeling when I saw Lumiere shoot form a leaving train, I was taken by the smooth movement into the tunnel that the film opens with and likewise the exit at the end. I liked it technically but also as a story telling device because it tells the viewer that the middle part of the story in the carriage is occurring in this tunnel. Essentially it has put the viewer on the train. It is an effective narrative tool but you need to remember that at this time there were no set narrative devices like we have now. The conventions of cinematic story telling are so set that we now only notice them when they are shunned. So here this is interesting to watch in regards seeing this early device used.
However the middle section is not as good. A simple static shot that has a man kiss a woman on the cheek with a lot of fuss leading up to it. It is not funny or interesting and seems out of place with the technical strength at the start. Worth a look to appreciate the narrative device but not much more than that.
Naughty Naughty...
coensfan15 December 2020
Warning: Spoilers
And the insertion edit was born. This Phantom Ride (as the subgenre is titled) slows down with it's second of three scenes but that doesn't stop it from cooling. With the first and third shots being composed of a train entering and exiting a tunnel, the heart of the picture is the extraordinary forty seconds that make up the film's second scene; in which a married couple flirt and exchange kisses within one of the vehicle's wagons. Though the clear artificiality of the train cart does clash with the film's otherwise pseudo-documentary approach to early filmmaking. What makes this forgivable is the believability of the actors performances, played by the director himself (George Albert Smith) and his wife (Laura Bayley) respectively. While "The Kiss in the Tunnel" can't hold the title of having film's oldest surviving sexual implication, (1896's "Coucher de la mariée" would have the honor of providing the medium's first innuendo in case anyone was wondering) it did give something of, in my opinion, much greater value to cinema. Genuine onscreen chemistry.
Important for containing the three-shot structure
Tornado_Sam1 October 2017
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.
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.
An Important Film
Michael_Elliott7 August 2015
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.
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.
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