''What the Butler Saw'' is a

mutoscope The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler and later patented by Herman Casler on November 21, 1894. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to ...

reel, and an early example of erotic films dating from the early 1900s. It depicted a scene of a woman partially undressing in her bedroom, as if some voyeuristic " butler" were watching her through a

keyhole A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object (such as a key, keycard, fingerprint, RFID card, security token or coin), by supplying secret information (such as a number or letter permutation or pas ...

. The film was seen by depositing a coin in a freestanding viewing machine, which then freed a hand-crank on the side which was turned by the viewer. Social standards are subject to change, and by the 1950s this and similar films were considered harmless when compared to contemporary erotica. The title of this feature became widely used in Britain as a generic term for devices and movies of this kind. The phrase had entered British popular culture after the 1886 divorce case of

Lord Colin Campbell Lord Colin Campbell (9 March 1853 – 18 June 1895) was a Scottish Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1878 to 1885. Campbell was the fifth son of George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, and his wife Lady Elizabeth Georgiana, ...

and

Gertrude Elizabeth Blood Gertrude Elizabeth, Lady Colin Campbell (''née'' Blood; 3 May 1857 – 1 November 1911) was an Irish-born journalist, author, playwright, and editor. She was married to Lord Colin Campbell, a brother-in-law of Princess Louise, Queen Victoria's ...

. The trial hinged on whether their butler could have seen Lady Campbell '' in flagrante'' with Captain Shaw of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, through the keyhole of their dining room at 79 Cadogan Place, London.

References

Film and video technology 1900s pornographic films {{porn-film-stub