Uploaded March 2009 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Filmed July 26, 1900/1903?, on the roof of the Bronx Biograph studio.
American Mutoscope and Biograph Co.
Camera: Arthur W. Marvin
Another ethnic vaudeville routine as with the film ''A Gesture Fight in Hester Street,'' only this time it's the Irish slum in Hell's Kitchen. The neighborhood was home to Irish immigrants starting in the mid-nineteenth century. Like all other immigrant ethnicity, Irish stereotypes were a staple of the vaudeville stage, with the symbol of choice being a voracious appetite for drinking. Even the stiff in the box didn't get enough over a lifetime. Note the fellow playing the 'wife.' Guffaws of laughter! Of course anarchy ensues!
MAN: She thinks ''lettuce'' is a proposition!''
WOMAN: Someone is fooling with my knee.
MAN: It's me, and I'm not fooling!
WOMAN: I'm not married.
MAN: Any children?
WOMAN: I told you, I'm not married.
MAN: Answer my question!
WOMAN: He's the father of a baby boy but his wife doesn't know it yet.
From Biograph picture catalogue, Nov. 1902 [MI], p. 39:
This scene is laid in the parlor of a New York tenement. Two watchers at the wake are smoking and drinking, while the widow is weeping over the coffin. The attention of the three is distracted for an instant, and the supposed corpse rises up, drinks all the beer in the pitcher which is standing on a table nearby, and lies down in the coffin again. The mourners return, and seeing that the beer is gone, engage in a controversy over it. During the scrap the corpse jumps out of the coffin and takes part in the melee.
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City that includes roughly the area between 34th Street and 59th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River. The southern part of Hell's Kitchen overlaps with the northern part of the 'Tenderloin' District (Chelsea). And speaking of Chelsea in the West Village, here's the "Tenderloin" at Night 1899: tinyurl.com/77uc4cw
Film from the Library of Congress
01/01/12 - 3,389
Filmed July 26, 1900/1903?, on the roof of the Bronx Biograph studio.
American Mutoscope and Biograph Co.
Camera: Arthur W. Marvin
Another ethnic vaudeville routine as with the film ''A Gesture Fight in Hester Street,'' only this time it's the Irish slum in Hell's Kitchen. The neighborhood was home to Irish immigrants starting in the mid-nineteenth century. Like all other immigrant ethnicity, Irish stereotypes were a staple of the vaudeville stage, with the symbol of choice being a voracious appetite for drinking. Even the stiff in the box didn't get enough over a lifetime. Note the fellow playing the 'wife.' Guffaws of laughter! Of course anarchy ensues!
MAN: She thinks ''lettuce'' is a proposition!''
WOMAN: Someone is fooling with my knee.
MAN: It's me, and I'm not fooling!
WOMAN: I'm not married.
MAN: Any children?
WOMAN: I told you, I'm not married.
MAN: Answer my question!
WOMAN: He's the father of a baby boy but his wife doesn't know it yet.
From Biograph picture catalogue, Nov. 1902 [MI], p. 39:
This scene is laid in the parlor of a New York tenement. Two watchers at the wake are smoking and drinking, while the widow is weeping over the coffin. The attention of the three is distracted for an instant, and the supposed corpse rises up, drinks all the beer in the pitcher which is standing on a table nearby, and lies down in the coffin again. The mourners return, and seeing that the beer is gone, engage in a controversy over it. During the scrap the corpse jumps out of the coffin and takes part in the melee.
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City that includes roughly the area between 34th Street and 59th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River. The southern part of Hell's Kitchen overlaps with the northern part of the 'Tenderloin' District (Chelsea). And speaking of Chelsea in the West Village, here's the "Tenderloin" at Night 1899: tinyurl.com/77uc4cw
Film from the Library of Congress
01/01/12 - 3,389
