This is one of three films featuring belly dancer Fatima at her work. It is said that this was somehow sexually explicit, but I can't say I agree. It's just dancing and yes of course we see her bare belly, but that's why it's called BELLY dancing. O tempora, o mores. I didn't like it as an art form as much as the more frequent serpentine dances from that era, but it's still an okay short film and Fatima surely gives it her everything to impress the audience. Too bad sound was not yet invented and thus we can't hear the wild rattling of the pearls from her good-looking dress or the music she is dancing too. It's a one-minute short worth a watch for silent film lovers.
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Horst_In_Translation12 October 2013
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Snow Leopard8 November 2005Once a source of some controversy, this Edison Company feature is now a historical curio that is of note primarily as one of the earliest examples of censorship in motion pictures. The earliest years of cinema saw a fair number of provocative films, many of them by the Edison Company, and it seems just a little odd now that this one was singled out. It seems likely that the attention paid to it may have been greater because of the notoriety that its star performer had already attracted.
The dancer Fatima, then widely-known, performs her routine, variously known as a muscle dance or by any of several other names. She is certainly lively, but it hardly seems particularly sensual, at least now. You have to wonder whether, as in so many cases, the controversy around her simply fed on itself instead of on anything genuinely scandalous.
There were at least a couple of methods that appear to have been used to cover up the portions of Fatima's act that were deemed to have needed it. Kino's DVD collection of Edison movies shows the original, unaltered version and one of the censored versions, which uses a grid-like pattern of white lines to cover certain areas. Truthfully, it is rather amusing that they bothered, and likewise that they would still go ahead and show the resulting print, which has a decidedly odd look to it.
In the earliest years of publicly shown movies, films of dancers became for a time one of the most popular genres, and there were many movies similar to this, varying widely both as to their entertainment value and as to how risqué they were. This is neither one of the best nor one of the most enjoyable nor one of the most provocative, but it's the one that was widely censored. With that in mind, it can be rather an interesting study to compare the various features of the genre for yourself. -
cricket3028 January 2013. . . cuz whoever gets there first apparently gets the IMDb stamp of approval. The curators of the Edison National Historic Site in East Orange, NJ (I went there with Miguel once) and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (just saw from the outside) AGREE that FATIMA, MUSCLE DANCER is the name of this 1896 short, to which they hold the original prints and all available information. But cuz Joe Blow put out a pirate VHS tape renaming everything with the first sensational Victorianploitation titillating title that came into his peabrained head, I have to have "Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance" on the official record of movies I've watched, wedged in between people who admit seeing ZOMBIES vs. STRIPPERS or BIKINI GIRLS ON ICE. Itz bad enough this print comes from some nanny state such as Oklahoma that sought to censor Fatima's artistic bust and hip machinations with crude white corral fence bars superimposed on her a4mentioned areas; it adds insult to injury that IMDb apparently discriminates against those who enjoyed this flick when it first came out by NOT EMPLOYING ANYBODY who would quickly set the record straight here!
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kekseksa16 March 2016This is a splendid example of any early "exploitation" film and of course, whatever sober title they may have given the films in their catalogues, the film companies were all here in the business of exploiting the ephemeral notoriety of the coochie-coochie or belly-dancers.
Mutoscope as usual set the ball rolling with its March 1896 film of Little Egypt, originally produced seemingly for their first peepshow-viewer. If so all the ascriptions are probably wrong. Little Egypt was more likely to have been either Farida Mazar Spyropoulos or Ashea Wabe. Mutoscope went on to make three more short films of her in 1897. I know of no copies of these films.
Edison was not slow to follow (July 1896) and it is he who filmed Fatima Djemille or Djamile as Fatima, the Muscle Dancer or Fatima's Cocchie-Couchie Dance (surely the name by which it was popularly known) in 1896 and again as Fatima in 1897. It is the first of these films which appears on youtube variously as Little Egypt 1896 and Little Egypt Dances for Edison (no catalogue title refers to her as "Little Egypt") and as Fatima's Coochie-Couchie Dance (annotated version by the Cinémathèque française) Lubin also filmed coochie-coochie dances using goodness knows what artistes. It would not have been beyond Lubin to have dressed himself or one of his family up for the part.
The compilation film that appears in Youtube as "Little Egyot" and elsewhere as "Little Egypt (Fatima Djemille) 1896 Edison" appears to be poor-quality stock footage from some more ethnic films of belly-dancing (most probably French) shot in Morocco intercut with clips from the Edison film.
Although these dancers did get to perform at World Fairs (and this was often signalled in the catalogues), they really owed their notoriety to performances "in the altogether" at private society stag functions ("bachelor dinners") which invariably got raided by the police. So it is not surprising that the films attracted censorship (which would not have bothers the film companies one bit) which might take the form of "barring" across the screen as in the youtube version but it could take the form of any blot or "stain" covering the "naughty bits". In one case, Chicago censors supposedly required the stain in question to the in the shape of New England (or did that bright idea actually come from the film company?). Unquestionably the whole game of censorship was part of the marketing strategy involved with these films, just, as, for instance, the hoary myth about audiences running scared of approaching trains on the screen had similarly been exploited to advertise train films. Stuart Blackton once claimed to have an ambulance in readiness for anyone who fainted.....
What is interesting to notice is the wide degree of collusion involved in the process of "exploitation" which is typically just as dependent on the willingness of Puritan USA to be shocked as it is on the film-makers desire to shock. Forget the girls, who are fairly unimportant in the whole process. The organisers of the stag events were themselvea impressarios of a kind (one of the belly-dance events was organised by P. T. Barnum!!) The police raids and the prurient interrogations that followed (that is where "in the altogether" comes from) were an equally important element in establishing notoriety. The World Fairs played a significant role in providing a sort of spurious respectability. The original Little Egypt film was made by Mutoscope in association with the marketing company, The Magic Introduction Company. Then came the dupes from Edison and Lubin and the 1897 follow-ups. And the censors, by making a silly fuss, effectively helped the film-makers to market their products.....
So there is no innocence anywhere here (see also my review of "Tenderlon at Night"). Exploitation, exploitation, exploitation....And why not?
For more authentic footage of belly-dancing made for a non-puritan audience see Segundo de Chomón's beautifully hand-coloured Danse des Ouled-Naid made for Pathé in 1902. -
Tornado_Sam14 May 2018This is another of the Edison Manufacturing Company's dance documentaries. And, considering the topic, you'd be right in saying that this was notorious in the day. Fatima was a well known belly-dancer who's act was called scandalous by many, and the Edison Co, not wanting to pass up an opportunity to make some cash, got Fatima to come to their studios to be filmed. The result was this film, which got lots of attention and became equally naughty. In fact, it got so bad that certain prints of the film were marked with some grid-like lines to cover up the sexy parts of the performer. For me this helped little and the dance is still pretty easy to view.
Besides the censorship issue, which the other reviewers have pointed out, there is another point to be made here: no more boring black background! Instead, there's a backdrop behind Fatima which makes it seem as though she's outside the studio. This is definitely a step up from the Black Maria's black backdrop, which they used back in the days of W. K. L. Dickson. It is an interesting bit of footage with some interesting points to be made. -
Michael_Elliott17 May 2015Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance (1896)
The Edison Company would film anything to make some money so belly dancer Fatima was brought to their studio to re-enact her famous act. What we've got is a little over a minute of Fatima spinning around and dancing. There were several "dancing" movies made during this period but what makes this one so interesting is that it came under attack by several groups and it ended up being censored in many locations. You can view the film in its censored form where we see "bars" hiding the "naughty" bits. Obviously, in 1896 this here was something naughty or shocking but today you see more in a Disney movie. There's certainly nothing excellent to be seen here but fans of early films or those just interesting in the censorship issue will want to check it out.