Just watched this primitive silent short by Austrian Johann Schwarzer on the Europa Film Treasures blog. It's basically a depiction of a clothed man with his naked lady friend, who's wearing just a towel, coming to a sandy place with the woman lying there nude with all her parts to see just before the man comes back to pour sand on her legs and her body. That's it and compared to what is filmed today, it's nothing to really get excited about but since this was made when movies were something fresh to countries outside America, it's fascinating to wonder what the Austrian males were thinking while watching this (of course, it's not hard to imagine what they were thinking, still, they probably weren't as perverted as we probably would be now with the more explicit images). On that note, Das Sandbad is worth a look.
4 Reviews
Starring Sandy Shore
JoeytheBrit20 November 2009
Twelve years after the invention of cinema - and therefore, of course, eleven years after the invention of porn films - comes this brief film from Johann Schwarzer, the director of a number of nudie pics for Saturn Films. Given that movie makers had had eleven years in which to dream up numerous ways in which to glorify the female form it's rather sad that this is the modest artistic level they had attained. The film comprises of a paunchy middle-aged man clearing a shallow trench in the sand while a young woman draped in a veil looks on. The old guy leaves and the women divests herself of her robe and sits in the trench as if it were a bath. She shifts position every now and then, clearly on Schwarzer's direction, but despite a rather fetching naturalness it's clear she doesn't really know what she's doing or what the director is trying to achieve. It's entirely possible that he doesn't either
The Sand Bath
Michael_Elliott20 June 2008
Sand Bath, The (1907)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
This short comes from Austria and was produced by Saturn Films, which was founded by director Schwarzer. It seems the entire point of this company was to jump into the movie making world but offer up more erotic entertainment for men. This film is a part of their "Natural Scenes" series, which were all shot outdoors with women doing various things. In the film we see a man walk towards the camera with a completely nude woman who then lays down in the sand and begins rubbing it on her. The woman is constantly changing positions so that the camera can pick up every inch of her nude body. It's funny watching these early "adult" films because of the Pre-Code era, which didn't allow any of this stuff. With that in mind, some people watch older movies and think the old days were pure and innocent but this short, one of many, just goes to show us men were perverts back then as well. It's rather amazing at how natural the woman acts in the film. Original title: Das Sandbad.
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
This short comes from Austria and was produced by Saturn Films, which was founded by director Schwarzer. It seems the entire point of this company was to jump into the movie making world but offer up more erotic entertainment for men. This film is a part of their "Natural Scenes" series, which were all shot outdoors with women doing various things. In the film we see a man walk towards the camera with a completely nude woman who then lays down in the sand and begins rubbing it on her. The woman is constantly changing positions so that the camera can pick up every inch of her nude body. It's funny watching these early "adult" films because of the Pre-Code era, which didn't allow any of this stuff. With that in mind, some people watch older movies and think the old days were pure and innocent but this short, one of many, just goes to show us men were perverts back then as well. It's rather amazing at how natural the woman acts in the film. Original title: Das Sandbad.
dressed - undressed
RResende6 December 2008
Of course the depiction of sex, or the hinting of sex (what may be called eroticism) is at the center of human creation for as long as art exists. So it is interesting to find out where that everlasting theme, in constant updating at every level, started showing in cinema. Well, obviously, at the beginning of cinema as well. So these films Schwarzer directed are important for us to understand sexuality in those days, and more important to me, how the theme was explored visually from the beginning.
Here, the intention was to make the woman look as 'natural' as sand. The color of her skin matches the color of the sand, and to underline this, the man "dresses" her with sand. She takes it as something innocent, visually it sounds harmonic, but the man is not unaware, and he is our surrogate in the film, as voyeurs who want to touch (i'm talking male audiences, to whom these films were and are certainly made).
Of course this has no effect today, not with the evolution our notions of sexuality had in the past 100 years. But it is of historical importance.
My opinion: 2/5
http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com
Here, the intention was to make the woman look as 'natural' as sand. The color of her skin matches the color of the sand, and to underline this, the man "dresses" her with sand. She takes it as something innocent, visually it sounds harmonic, but the man is not unaware, and he is our surrogate in the film, as voyeurs who want to touch (i'm talking male audiences, to whom these films were and are certainly made).
Of course this has no effect today, not with the evolution our notions of sexuality had in the past 100 years. But it is of historical importance.
My opinion: 2/5
http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com
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