Something Good – Negro Kiss

In Something Good, a well-dressed African American couple exchange several kisses. Between kisses they hold and swing each other's hands and laugh together. The chemistry in the performances is described as "palpable", The longer version was produced at the same time and may have been produced for the international market. Research notes that alternate versions were sold and separately listed with varying lengths. The longer version is also from a perspective point further away and inverted, with the actors on opposite sides from the first version, although whether this was a mistake in production or reproduction is unknown. Scholars also perceive the longer film as more "vaudevillesque", with more acting work, than the romance of the first. The film was made in Chicago by director and producer William Selig, a film pioneer, who also had prior experience with staged minstrel shows. He used his own version of a Lumière cinématographe camera to shoot Something Good. Selig distributed the Selig Polyscope Company film through the Sears & Roebuck mail order catalog. ==Rediscovery==

A 20-second-long negative of Something Good nitrate film was rediscovered at an estate sale in Louisiana by an archivist from the University of Southern California in 2017. Reviewing the technical details of the film, thereby dating it with the film stock and perforation holes, catalogs and sales material, scholars at USC and the University of Chicago were able to identify the film's production history. Four years later, in 2021, a 49-second film held in the National Library of Norway in Oslo was identified as an extended version of Something Good. At the time of its accession by the Library, it was misidentified and cataloged as a Lumière film. It is one of the oldest films in the National Library collection. ==Further reading==