Meanwhile, back in Blighty, films showing actual nudity, such as Nude Woman by a Waterfall from 1920, could only be seen in cinema or photographic clubs. Appropriately shot on a Kinetoscope or ‘peepshow’ camera, the Brighton-based pioneer Esme Collins’ A Victorian Lady at Her Boudoir (1896) is, in effect, a three-minute long stripshow in which the leading lady stops short in her shift, appears confused by the camera and tousles her hair by way of a wink to the audience.īy 1920 it was reported that no self-respecting brothel on the continent considered its facilities complete without a stock of ‘stag films’.
The first known example of British ‘cheesecake’ top ends The Pleasure Principle, a new collection on BFI Player exploring the history of British film erotica. Three years later, on this side of the Atlantic, George Méliès produced the first moving picture to feature nudity, though only a few frames from Le Bain (1896) have survived. We know that a group of adventurous Brazilian pornographers bought one of the first five Kinetoscope cameras manufactured by Thomas Edison in 1893.
Right from the start, when moving images were developed in the 1890s, their erotic potential was seized upon. And the motion picture was no exception to this rule. New media can always rely on sex to propel its popularity.
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