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The 1898 film, directed by U.S. film industry
pioneer William Selig, stars vaudeville actors Saint Suttle and
Gertie Brown and shows them courting and kissing in front of a
cloth backdrop.
The only previously known copy of "Something Good - Negro Kiss"
was acquired from a collector in Louisiana in 2017 and added to
the U.S Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 2018 for
its cultural value.
It depicts a tender scene between two African-American actors at
a time when caricatures of Black life were more common.
The version identified by Norway's National Library differs in
that it is longer and the actors are filmed from a greater
distance.
"It is more complex, there is more of a prelude before the
kisses, with wooing, refusal and negotiation," said Eirik
Frisvold Hanssen, head of the National Library's film section.
"It is not as clean as the American version but we get to see
more of the actors and how they behave."
It was taken to Norway by a young Norwegian man, who likely
bought a copy at the time in the United States and brought it
back home, the National Library said. It is among the oldest
films in the library's collections.
(Reporting by Ilze Filks, writing by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by
Mike Collett-White)
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