I accompanied a silent film for Kennington Bioscope online, which was shown on Wednesday 19th August. The film dates from 1909, and was made by Eclipse films in Paris. ‘Une partie de tandem’ is hair-raising: the stunts are all real, of course, and the husband and ‘wife’ – a man cross-dressed – must have incurred many cuts and bruises and possibly worse in the making of the film. It’s only about 5 minutes long, but they pack as many different ways of coming to grief on two shared wheels as possible. Presumably the wife is played by a man because Eclipse assumed no woman would be prepared to take the knocks and risks. History doesn’t record whether any women were approached…
You can watch the film here
Colin Sell 