Best and Most Memorable
Film Kisses of All Time
in Cinematic History
Part 11
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Best and Most Memorable Part 11 |
Most of these scenes come from vintage, classic Hollywood films, rather than more recent films, and even stretch back to the scandalous The Kiss (1896)! Other discussions of notable romantic or sexual scenes (with more examples of great kissing scenes) may be found elsewhere in this site: Romance Films Genre, or Erotic/Sexual Films Genre, or the History of Sex in Cinema.  are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films |
| (in chronological order by film title) Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 |
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In the gymnasium dance sequence, from across the dance floor, Puerto Rican Maria (Natalie Wood) and Polish-American Tony (Richard Beymer) spotted each other and became magically entranced - everything around them became blurred and in soft focus. As the lights around them went out, they were drawn to each other as other couples around them froze - it was instantaneous love at first sight. As a couple, they performed a light ballet to the tune of "Maria" - the black sky behind them was dotted with multi-colored stars, as they spoke to each other -- Tony: "You're not thinkin' I'm someone else." Maria: "I know you are not." Tony: "Or that we met before?" Maria: "I know we have not." Tony: "I felt - I knew something never before was gonna happen, had to happen, but this is so much more." Maria: "My hands are cold. (He touched and took her hands) "Yours too." (She gently caressed his cheek with her right hand) "So warm." Tony: (He was guided to touch her face) "So beautiful." Maria: "Beautiful." Tony: "It's so much to believe. You're not makin' a joke." Maria: "I have not yet learned how to joke that way. I think now I never will"; the camera slowly moved in as Tony's lips descended to Maria's for their first kiss; when their romantic reverie ended and the lights came back up, Maria's brother Bernardo (George Chakiris) pushed the American away from improperly kissing his appealing sister: "Get your hands off, American! Stay away from my sister!" | 
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Jules and Jim (1962, Fr.)
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A kiss between returning WWI soldier Jim (Henri Serre) and Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) was accompanied by dissolving images of Catherine in bed, and the narrator's words: "Their first kiss lasted all night" | 
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In a night-time scene, to demonstrate Humbert's (James Mason) growing obsession with young nymphet Dolores 'Lolita' Haze (Sue Lyons), he played chess with her mother Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters), when 'Lolita' strolled into the living room wearing a full length nightgown; Charlotte was worried - symbolically: "You're going to take my Queen!" He replied, expectedly: "That is my intention." Lolita leaned on the arm of his chair next to him, and then murmured: "G'night." She kissed her mother on the cheek and then nuzzled cheek to cheek next to Humbert before leaving to go upstairs; Humbert immediately took Charlotte's Queen in his next move: "It had to happen sometime" - he quipped; Humbert also received a goodbye kiss when Lolita was leaving for camp, when she memorably told him: "Don't forget me" |  
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Two For the Seesaw (1962)
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Temporarily-unemployed, embittered, lonely and divorcing Nebraska lawyer Jerry Ryan (Robert Mitchum) kissed poor, candidly-liberated, Jewish Greenwich Village dancer Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz (Shirley MacLaine), to prove that he wasn't "queer" -- with their dialogue in between passionate smooches: (Ryan (after being asked if he was 'queer'): "Now you've gone too far" (He walked over to her and kissed her) Mosca: "How long have you been on the wagon?" Ryan: "A year" Mosca: "Where ya been? In jail?") and then she asked: "You want me to be promiscuous?" | 
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Kiss (1963)
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Andy Warhol's 54 minute underground 16 mm. film consisted entirely of a series or montage of shorter (approx. 3 minute) films spliced together of various couples (of various sexes) kissing - each segment filmed in long takes; sometimes the gender of a kisser was undetermined |  
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Goldfinger (1964)
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Lesbian-leaning blonde Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), aptly named, was the personal pilot for villain Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) - she was one of a team of all-female pilots dubbed Pussy Galore's Flying Circus; she often took a stance with her hands on hips, and when she took agent 007 James Bond (Sean Connery) on a tour of Goldfinger's compound and horse stable, he decided to offer his manly charms to her: "You're quite a girl, Pussy" and then grabbed her: "What would it take for you to see things my way?" - she resisted him: "A lot more than you've got"; when he responded, "How do you know?", she rejected his heterosexual advances: "I don't want to know"; he forcefully pulled her to himself, asking: "Isn't it customary to grant a condemned man his last request?" - to which she responded aggressively: "You've asked for this!" - she took his arm and flipped him onto the hay, and then commanded: "Get up!"; he up-ended her, and she landed next to him; he responded: "Certainly," stood up, and extended his hand to her - and then flipped her a short distance further into more hay, while quipping: "There, now let's both play"; she briefly held him off by wrestling against him, but then surrendered herself to his overpowering male sex appeal as he lowered himself down onto her and kissed her. By film's end after she had helped Bond defeat Goldfinger, they parachuted together to safety from a crashing jet plane - Bond told her that she shouldn't signal for help as he pulled her onto the ground: "Oh no you don't. This is no time to be rescued" - he covered the two of them with the parachute - for privacy's sake. |
  
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Marnie (1964)
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In a hotly debated scene, frigid con artist/thief Marnie/Mary Edgar's (icy blonde Tippi Hedren) new husband Mark Rutland (James Bond co-star Sean Connery) - who was unable to hold back his desire - ripped off Marnie's nightgown on their honeymoon cruise to Fiji; he stumbled out an apology, but slowly drew her forward and hungrily kissed her, which she did not return; she laid down on the bed and allowed him to have her, but with no emotion nor passion, leaving the question open as to whether she wanted to have sex but was frigid, or was being passively raped |   
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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, W. Germ/Fr.), (aka Les Parapluies de Cherbourg or Die Regenschirme von Cherbourg)
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In this heartbreaking and tragic cinematic opera/love story about star-crossed lovers set in 1957 Normandy, France, all of the dialogue was sung with a memorable musical score by composer Michel Legrand (including the ubiquitous love theme "I Will Wait for You"); in the film, 17 year-old boutique shop girl in the French port of Cherbourg, named Geneviève (19 year-old Catherine Deneuve) fell in love with a lowly, 20 year-old auto mechanic named Guy (Nino Castelnuovo); before he left on a train to fight in the Algerian War and not return for two years, the couple spent their last night together in the town of Cherbourg, where they professed their teenaged, emotional love in wonderful duet-singing while sitting in a cafe and walking arm in arm in the street: -- Guy: "We have so little time left. So little time, my love, and we mustn't waste it. We must try to be happy. Of our last moments, we must keep a memory more beautiful than anything. A memory to help us live" Genevieve: "I'm so afraid when I'm alone" Guy: "We'll be together again, and we'll be stronger" Genevieve: "You'll meet other women - you'll forget me" Guy: "I will love you until the end of my life" Genevieve: "Guy, I love you. Don't leave me! (They kissed in an alleyway.) My love, don't leave me"; when she confided that she was afraid, he confessed his love for her and they kissed again in front of a mirror in his aunt's apartment; they made love (and she became pregnant and gave birth during his time of service), and the love-sick Genevieve bid him farewell at the train station; in the film's poignant and bittersweet conclusion five years later, the two married individuals (to different partners) had a chance meeting at his Esso gas station in Cherbourg - where Guy saw his daughter Francoise for the first time |
  
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After breaking off his engagement with Baroness Elsa Schraeder (Eleanor Parker), the Captain (Christopher Plummer) followed after despairing and confused Maria (Julie Andrews) by the pavilion and asked two questions - about why she ran away to the Abbey and why she came back; he revealed that he wanted her to stay permanently when he told her that his engagement was off, and then held her tenderly by the chin and drew her lips nearer for a kiss There was an earlier kiss in bluish light of the evening between Liesl (Charmian Carr) and 17 year-old boyfriend Rolf (Daniel Truhitte) in the garden near the pavilion, after singing Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" together - a song of their innocent young adolescent love on the brink of adulthood; thunder, lightning and rain forced them into the shelter of the gazebo where they continued singing and dancing in a magical sequence - at the conclusion of their duet, they finally kissed just once to their mutual surprise - in reaction, Rolf raced rapturously from the gazebo, while Liesl exclaimed triumphantly with her arms outstretched: "Whee!" |
  
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Benjamin Braddock's (Dustin Hoffman) first fearful but lustful bedroom encounter in a hotel for an affair with the calm and almost businesslike married Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) was very memorable - after she turned on the light upon entering, he almost immediately moved the "Don't Disturb" sign to the outside of the door, set the door lock, and turned the lights back off; then he abruptly kissed her before she could exhale smoke from a drag on her cigarette | 
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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
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Stanley Kramer's and Columbia Pictures' socially-conscious message film was the first truly mainstream Hollywood film to portray an interracial couple's romance between Dr. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier in a star-making role) and his fiancee Joey Drayton (Katharine Houghton - Katharine Hepburn's actual niece); except for one brief revolutionary view of the couple kissing (seen in a cab driver's rear view mirror on their way to the city of San Francisco from the airport), other scenes of their physical intimacy were edited out | 
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Two For the Road (1967)
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This non-linear romantic comedy from director Stanley Donen told about a volatile couple's 12-year marital relationship as they made successive road-trips to the French Riviera; at the film's conclusion after the couple had ultimately reconciled and accepted who they were, Mark Wallace (Albert Finney) leaned over to kiss Joanna (Audrey Hepburn) - he endearingly called her: "Bitch" as she responded: "Bastard" - afterwards, their car went through a French-Italian border checkpoint and they drove away to a more resolved future in Rome |  
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Planet of the Apes (1968)
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Displaced astronaut-human George Taylor (Charlton Heston) kissed scientist-ape Zira (Kim Hunter), following this dialogue, as they stood next to crashing waves on a beach: Taylor: "Doctor, I'd like to kiss you goodbye." Zira: "All right ... but you're so damned ugly!" | 
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Introduction: What makes
a memorable screen kiss? Is it the passion, the circumstances, the buildup,
the dialogue, the unpredictability, the awkwardness, the sexiness or
eroticism, the cinematography, the unique quality...? Although any list
of the best, most romantic, and most indelible kisses through film history
is difficult to create, there are a number of kissing scenes in movies
that are unforgettable and deserve special mention. 