Best and Most Memorable
Film Kisses of All Time
in Cinematic History
Part 2
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Best and Most Memorable Part 2 |
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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The Son of the Sheik (1926)
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The decade's most popular, legendary male screen lover Rudolph Valentino (in his final film before his sudden death in August 1926 following his collapse at the film's NY premiere) starred in the title dual role as the now-older Sheik and his hot-blooded son Ahmed, who played opposite alluring, kidnapped bejeweled dancer, Yasmin (Vilma Banky); this was the superior follow-up silent adventure/melodramatic romance film to The Sheik (1921); it engendered criticism for being "morally objectionable" for its vengeful rape scene against Yasmin (only suggestively seen by a sequence of wide-eyed, soft-focus close-ups), as he forced himself upon her and said: "For once, your kisses are free!" as he approached her and the screen faded to black |  
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Seventh Heaven (1927)
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The ethereal and spiritual nature of romance was evidenced between Parisian sewer worker Chico (Charles Farrell) and street angel-waif Diane (Janet Gaynor) in his 7th floor bohemian loft (near the stars); when the two lovers were separated by war (she ended up as a munitions worker) and he was blinded, they still remained in telepathic communication with their hearts and minds each night at 11 - the film ended with the scene of their jubilant reconciliation following the war's end in a shaft of light | 
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In this story of corruption and redemption, a rustic farmer - a fallen, married country Man (George O'Brien) living in a romanticized rural town fell prey to the seductive wiles of a city vamp and tempting mistress (Margaret Livingston) in an illicit affair. She summoned him with a soft, clandestine whistle at his window, and they rendezvoused together on the edge of the misty, moonlit marshes. The supernatural spell and erotic charm of the city woman seduced him and he pulled her into his arms for a passionate, fervent kiss - she stole his sanity and soul as she literally pulled him down into the swamp. While being kissed as they laid on the grass, the seductress tempted him, visualizing for him how to murder his wife and enjoy the allure of city life (seen in a kaleidoscope of images) | 
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Later, after the country Man (George O'Brien) has reunited with his wife (Janet Gaynor) after threatening to kill her on their trip to the city, they were without fear and guilt - and seemingly invulnerable to the dangerous traffic they walked through. Magically, they appeared in a wooded country field with beautiful blooming flowers - their internal perceptions, visions, and feelings took on an objective reality. They walked into their fantasy world of the country and kissed - their love triumphed over chaotic evil in a commonly-shared dream. They suddenly reappeared super-imposed back within the congested city while still kissing and stopping traffic | 
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| Happiness and New Dawn Kisses |
The farmer/husband (George O'Brien) and his presumed-drowned wife (Janet Gaynor) were reunited after she had been found alive but unconscious - he rushed to his wife's bedside in the farmhouse where they were joyously reunited; he attentively sat by his wife's bedside, where she slept with their infant until the dawn's light appeared - she opened her eyes and smiled at him with an angelic face and long-flowing hair after releasing her tight bun. She opened her eyes and turned her head on the pillow toward her husband. Their lips slowly drew together for a kiss, dissolving into the bright rays of an art-deco sun filling the screen. The word "Finis" floated upward to take the place of the sun as the music dramatically swelled |  
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Wings (1927)
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This first Best Picture winner was also noted as portraying the first on-screen male-male kiss on the lips, when a handsome young soldier John "Jack" Powell (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) placed a lingering kiss on the mouth of his dying friend David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) | 
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The Wedding March (1928)
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Under a shedding apple-blossom tree was a highly-romantic kiss between two lovers in a doomed relationship -- poor musician's daughter Mitzi Schrammell (Fay Wray) and young dissolute aristocrat Prince Nicki von Wildeliebe-Rauffenburg (director Erich von Stroheim), in pre-WWI Vienna | 
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A Woman of Affairs (1928)
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This MGM and Clarence Brown film with Greta Garbo (as Diana Merrick) and John Gilbert (as Neville Holderness) (in their third film together), was based upon Michael Arlen's erotic and controversial play The Green Hat, but sanitized for Hollywood, with its non-explicit melodramatic story of a carefree woman engaged in numerous illicit and amorous love affairs; in one of the most memorable scenes, Diana lounged seductively on a couch with a ring loosely dangling off her finger, mentioning coyly and temptingly to Neville: "I've been told I'm like this ring -- apt to fall...Neville, I have never said 'I love you' to any man - but you!.. " - as they passionately kissed and she stretched back horizontally under his embrace, the ring fell (in closeup) from her finger to the floor | 
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Pandora's Box (1929, Ger.)
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Insatiable, free-spirited, 18 year-old cabaret chorus girl and femme fatale Lulu (Louise Brooks), with a black bob (pageboy) haircut, was caught backstage in a wardrobe room scandalously kissing her obsessed and spell-bound patron - a wealthy newspaper owner named Dr. Ludwig Schon (Fritz Kortner) - by his more socially-acceptable fiancee Charlotte Marie Adelaide (Daisy d'Ora); Schon's marriage to his fiancee was immediately cancelled and he was compelled to marry Lulu instead, only to become jealously enraged (by her flirtations with his son Alwa (Franz Lederer)) and then he was accidentally murdered on his wedding night after struggling with a gun between them; her final kiss was on Christmas Eve in London's Soho during an erotic embrace when she was killed by gleaming-knifed Jack the Ripper (Gustav Diessl) (her hand went limp to indicate her death) |
   
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The Divorcee (1930)
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This pivotal, brash Pre-Code film about divorce and infidelity featured Norma Shearer's Best Actress Oscar-winning role as a Manhattan ad writer with a man's name (Jerry) and a "man's point of view" who became a wayward 'loose woman'; the film was controversial at the time for its reversal of the hypocritical 'double standard'; when Jerry caught her unfaithful husband-newspaperman Ted Martin (Chester Morris) engaged in philandering and infidelity with an ex-girlfriend (the recently-divorced Janice (Mary Doran)), she matched Ted's unfaithfulness with her own sexually-adventurous, one-night stand tryst with their consoling, wealthy best friend Don (Robert Montgomery) after an evening of partying; when Ted stubbornly packed up and explained how his vanity and honor were ruined, she vowed to become more wanton; but by the film's conventional happy ending, she selflessly returned and was reconciled to her husband where he was working in Paris; they decided to take a second chance on marriage at midnight, during a New Year's Eve celebration at a nightclub (she told him: "You're the only husband I ever had - and ever want. A new year in a minute, Ted. All the world gets a new chance" and he replied: "I'd give my right arm for another chance" and they clinched when she replied: "I like that right arm. How about putting it around me?"). |
 
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Morocco (1930)
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In her Hollywood debut film (with Paramount and von Sternberg), Marlene Dietrich (as Amy Jolly) scandalously wore a sexually-ambiguous men's tuxedo and top hat as a performer in a North African cabaret club; in an early scene in which she exhibited smoky eroticism, she sang "Quand L’mour," took a flower from the hair of a young lady in the audience (asking: "May I have this?"), inhaled it suggestively, and then kissed the woman full on the mouth - one of the earliest (if not the first) female-to-female kiss; after wild applause, the bisexual (or androgynous) chanteuse tossed the flower to admiring foreign legionnaire Tom Brown (a young Gary Cooper) in the audience | 
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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. 