The Barbershop

Before I discuss this film, I'd like to clear up the date discrepancy surrounding the short. On the Kino's "Movies Begin" set we aren't actually given a date to the short, as it is put in a collection of eight Edison movies that aren't in chronological (since "The Kiss" comes at the beginning and this is near the end of the list). Yet on the same company's "Edison: Invention of the Movies" it has been listed as being an 1893 short, made the same year as "Blacksmith Scene" and "Horse Shoeing" which I do not believe to be correct. If "The Barber Shop" was from 1893, it would have been among the first several publicly exhibited movies. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've read before that the other two titles were the only known productions made by Edison that year. The evidence backing up the 1893 theory is probably because all three productions attempt to recreate a scene of everyday life in a studio--and they all seem connected together in that regard.

Moving on, I will explain what I meant by that first advertising movie comment. Yes, this movie was never really recognized as such, and certainly it doesn't appear to be a commercial of any sort outright, but I think that, known or not, the advertising concept was clearly in Edison's mind when he had Heise and Dickson film this. Let's start with the fact that the shave and a haircut for a nickel fad was, I believe, still quite fairly new when this movie was shot. It was a deal no one should have passed up. And so, thinking that he should alert the U.S. of this amazing bargain, Edison combined the two things in one--the haircut and the motion pictures. In this way, he would, shall we say, be able to cash in on charging the public to view his movie, while also spreading the news of this fantastic deal. In this way, both the barber and the company would be happy with the process. The signs of the advertising concept are quite obvious--the sign stating the deal makes the point clear, the comicality of the view amuses the audience to make it entertaining. Don't we do the same today? Like this short, we, with our fancy technology, are able to entertain while advertising our own products. And that is what I mean when I call this the first commercial.

Additionally, more historical value is attributed to this movie when you consider how early it was made (1893 or 1894, it doesn't matter). Edison's later works in 1894 and 1895 were mostly performance acts of famous dancers and athletes. Bearing that in mind, this is where "Blacksmith Scene", "Horse Shoeing" and this film come in. All three have simple brief narratives, all three attempt to tell a miniature plot within the brief run-time. And thus, all three are responsible for being the first staged narratives. What else can I say? Even in 1893 Edison was way ahead of the Lumiere Brothers when it came to narrative development.