First high five in cinema history?

Along with being among the first (if not the first) to showcase various new film-making techniques, is it possible that Breathless is also the first screen documentation of the “high five”?

haha! well, if it isn’t, i dont know what is.

but more seriously, wasn’t it also the first french film to use foul language/curse words?

How about Un chant d’amour?

@Law: It’s been a while since I saw Un chant d’amour. When does this “high-five” happen? Aren’t the two characters separated by a prison wall for the entire film? Does a “high-five” count if there’s no actual skin contact?

1955: Sergeant Bilko in The Phil Silvers Show (episode nine, “The Eating Contest”)

Good research, Grey Daisies!

I came up with an even earlier appearance: In the Abbott & Costello film In The Navy (1941), the Andrews Sisters perform the song “Gimme Some Skin, My Friend.” During that musical number, high-fives (and even high-tens) are exchanged among the performers.

Decades later, a variation on that song’s refrain, “Gimme some skin, kin,” became a hip term to initiate a high-five, low-five, or smooth-five.

I’m certain that J-L Godard was familiar with the Abbott & Costello movie, but doubtful that he had ever seen The Phil Silvers Show. :-)

Along the same lines, i think i might have seen the first “middle finger”! in “speedy” starring harold lloyd, 1927.

Haha Frank, that remark was facetious.

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