This film is typical of the productions by Johann Schwarzer, who studied photography and chemistry before founding Vienna’s first cinematographic production company, Saturn-Films, in 1906. For a long time, historians failed to mention that he produced Austria’s very first films.  This might have something to do with the fact that Saturn did not work with the most “prestigious” genre – they made only erotic films.

Drawing his early inspiration from Charles Pathé’s "Scènes Grivoises", Schwarzer soon created his own style that quickly become known by amateurs across Europe as scènes viennoises. While he always revealed a little more skin than his competitors, Schwarzer never veered into pornography. His saucy films were harmless enough, aimed at a wide audience.

Film nights were announced as “Pikanter Herrenabend Film” (Racy film nights for gentlemen) or “Pariser Herrenabend Film"  (Parisian films for gentlemen). Showings of these saucy little films were often accompanied by images of surgical operations and close-ups of odd bodily deformities. The morbid and the macabre enjoyed the same audience at the time.

But not everyone was amused. As early as 1910, a few radicals demanded the Viennese authorities shut down the Saturn production company. Catholic associations took advantage of the situation to denounce the film-maker as immoral. Most of the films were literally axed, following a court order in 1911. The catalogues, negatives and copies all suffered the same fate.

We owe the survival of these films to a few devoted fans of the genre, who were able to save a few copies. The majority of Saturn films come from collector Albert Fidelius, the son of a German distributor, who began collecting primitive films in 1933. The collection was then purchased in the 1950s by German film director Gerhard Lamprecht, who founded the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek several years later.

The films can be recognized by a star, the special Saturn trademark that is clearly visible in all their décor. In the 1990s, original nitrate-based films (mainly negatives) were entrusted to the Filmarchiv Austria, where they were duly restored.