The film was released in April 1896 and was publicized in a sponsored article in the New York World about actors kissing on stage. The article discussed the controversy surrounding onstage kissing and, along with an illustration of the Irwin and Rice's kiss, referred readers to The Widow Jones and the Edison film. The campaign sought to bring attention to the newspaper, play, and movie all at once. The film was one of the last shot at Edison's Black Maria and was sold to exhibitors for $7.50. By the fall of 1896, many theaters were showing The Kiss at the end of every show.
Reaction
The film contained the very first kiss on film, with a close-up of a nuzzling couple followed by a short peck on the lips. The kissing scene was denounced as shocking and obscene to early moviegoers and caused the Roman Catholic Church to call for censorship and moral reform, as kissing in public at the time could lead to prosecution. The film caused a scandalized uproar and occasioned disapproving newspaper editorials and calls for police action in many places where it was shown. One contemporary critic wrote, "The spectacle of the prolonged pasturing on each other's lips was beastly enough in life size on the stage but magnified to gargantuan proportions and repeated three times over it is absolutely disgusting." However, according to Dengler in the Journal of Popular Film and Television, the shocked reaction of the general public is a myth. The Edison catalogue advertised it this way: "They get ready to kiss, begin to kiss, and kiss and kiss and kiss in a way that brings down the house every time." Because Thomas Edison produced the world’s first kiss on film, it has often been remarked that Thomas Edison was the first pornographer in film, in a sense. This opinion is mentioned in The Big Bang Theory Season 11 Episode 8. Perhaps in defiance and "to spice up a film", this was followed by many kiss imitators and take-offs, including Something Good – Negro Kiss, The Kiss in the Tunnel and The Kiss.
Public exposure
For a number of years, it was believed that a showing of The Kiss was the first film publicly shown in Canada, projected in West End Park, Ottawa, on July 21, 1896. It has since been learned that the competing Lumière BrothersCinematograph had already exhibited different films in Montreal 24 days earlier, on June 27, 1896.
