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Best and Most Memorable Part 4 |
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Best and Most Memorable Part 4 |
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Note:
The films that are marked with a yellow star |
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| (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 |
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In their
drab, cheap hotel room, a domestic squabble brewed between sharpshooting
bank robbery couple Annie Laurie (Peggy Cummins) and Bart (John Dall)
- she emerged from the bathroom behind him, wearing a white, terry-clothed
robe (and naked underneath) - she was complaining and dis-satisfied with
her unexciting life. As he cleaned his gun barrel by thrusting (phallically)
a brush within it, she pulled on her nylons and rejected his proposal
of a forty-dollars a week job at Remington. When he suggested pawning
his guns to "make another start," she countered with an appeal to his
flagging masculinity, telling him that she wanted "a guy with spirit and
guts" - if he couldn't deliver, she suggested: "You'd better kiss me goodbye."
Agonizing over what to do (his dangling hand opening and closing at his
side), he finally succumbed to her wily, fearless, and ruthless ultimatum
- goaded to illicitly pursue happiness and acquire "things". The blackmail
scene ended with his sexual acquiescence and gratification, his decision
to remain, and a close-up of his mouth inching towards hers for a passionate
kiss, and it dissolved into the gunshot blast of a gumball bowl - an orgasmic,
erotic/violent beginning of their crime rampage as gun-toting 'wild animals' |
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In one of the most romantic performances
ever filmed, in an extended scene of budding romance, the film captured
the sensuous and electrifying romantic interplay between rich girl Angela
(Elizabeth Taylor) and poor boy George (Montgomery Clift) at a dance;
in a sensual series of full-face closeups as they danced together, George
finally confessed his love to Angela - the love of an ideal woman which
had now been discovered in her, and breathlessly, Angela began to confess
her love for him in kind; on the balcony during powerfully-erotic moments,
their enormous, extreme closeups filled the screen as they revealed innermost,
heightened emotions and inflamed passions, and pledged themselves to each
other. They closely embraced and kissed passionately, caught up in an
all-consuming relationship over which they had no control; in the final
scene, Angela, wearing black (with a white collar), loyally and faithfully
visited him in prison just before George's scheduled execution in the
electric chair for his part in his pregnant girlfriend's death - she still
clung to her deep love for him. Angela promised: "I'll go on loving
you for as long as I live." George replied: "Love me for the
time I have left. Then, forget me" before they kiss one last time |
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As a lonely woman pathologically desperate and yearning for sexual attention, Blanche (Vivien Leigh) was attracted to a young newspaper delivery boy (Wright King) who came to her door one rainy afternoon. He reminded her of her young husband who committed suicide, and still neurotically grieving, she wanted to subconsciously make up for his death. She caused the bashful young man to linger with small talk, and she seductively offered herself for a maternal kiss. "Young man. Young, young, young. Did anyone ever tell you you look like a young prince out of the Arabian Nights? You do, honey lamb. Come here. Come on over here, like I told you. I want to kiss you just once, softly and sweetly [on your mouth]*." *(originally deleted) But she caught herself after seductively pressing one kiss into his lips, knowing she had a weakness for young males: "Run away now quickly. It would have been nice to keep you, but I've got to be good - and keep my hands off children. Adios. Adios" |
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During a wild and breezy windstorm
in his boyhood Irish home, Sean (John Wayne) arrived at his newly-purchased
thatched cottage where a fire burned; Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara), the
shepherd girl from the green del, was flushed out from hiding in the bedroom
and rushed for the front door, but he reached for her right arm, pulled
her back, twirled her like a ballet dancer into the cottage, twisted her
arm behind her back as she resisted, and then bent the stranger over backwards
with an embrace and passionate kiss - their first; the storm continued
to blow through the cottage, sending Mary Kate's red hair whipping around
behind her - the wind was an external manifestation of her passion; when
she realized what had happened, she stood back, reflected about his bold
advances, and then cocked her fist back for an explosive, powerful swing
at his face - he flinched, bent backward, and blocked the stiff-armed
blow with his hand as she missed; at the end of the poetic, romantic scene,
Mary Kate gazed at him for a few seconds, opened the door to leave (unleashing
the wind again), turned toward him, boldly and daringly planted a kiss
on his lips, and fled into the wild night; a second sexier kiss occurred
during their further courtship in an ancient church graveyard during a
rainstorm, when Sean's shirt was soaked to the skin; as they embraced
and clung to each other, she held her hosiery in her left hand against
his drenched chest; her upturned face met his lips for a kiss, and then
she rested her right cheek against him. Both looked off toward the awesome
storm - and their future together, as the soundtrack played the plaintiff
Irish ballad, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" |
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In the film's finale, as the camera
pulled back, Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) and Don (Gene Kelly) were pictured
facing each other on a billboard that announced them as the new stellar
love team of Monumental Pictures in their first picture together, Singin'
in the Rain; they consummated the success of the show (and their budding
personal relationship) by kissing in front of the billboard that was positioned
on a hillside |
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This film has always been most
famous for its clothed, entwined beach embrace and forbidden kissing between
Army Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) and adulterous Army Captain's wife
Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) in the churning Hawaiian waves that covered
them, on a summer night on a deserted sandy beach; after their clinch,
she rose, pranced up the sand, and collapsed onto their blanket; Warden
followed and stood above her, dropped to his knees, and found her lips
in his, and then Karen breathlessly spoke: "I never knew it could
be like this. Nobody ever kissed me the way you do"; but their love
scene turned ugly - when he asked: "Nobody?" "No, nobody,"
she replied. "Not even one, out of all the men you've been kissed
by?" he asked. "Can't you give me a rough estimate?" Irritated,
she replied, "Not without an adding machine. Do you have your adding
machine with you?" |
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Mogambo (1953)
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Aging Clark Gable, as African animal trapper and safari leader Victor Marswell became involved in affairs with his two beautiful leading co-stars in this John Ford remake romance/adventure film (twenty-one years after Red Dust (1932)) - the first relationship began with an evening porch kiss with stranded, provocative wisecracking good-time-girl Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly (Ava Gardner), and a second adulterous affair involved him with Linda Nordley (Grace Kelly) - a cool and prim but lustful wife of a British anthropologist, during a gorilla jungle expedition |
 
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| Pickup on South Street (1953)
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Ex-con pick-pocket Skip McCoy
(Richard Widmark) kissed prostitute Candy (Jean Peters) for the first
time, as he remarked: "You look for oil, sometimes you hit a gusher" | 
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Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) knocked numerous times and pleaded with white slip-wearing Edie (Eva Marie Saint) to unlock her door, but she refused -- she begged: "Stay away from me," but he insisted fiercely: "Come on, please open the door please"; he finally broke the door down, and as she huddled in bed, she drew back the covers over her: "I want you to stay away from me." After he told her: "Edie, you love me...I want you to say it to me," she responded: "I didn't say I didn't love you. I said, 'STAY AWAY FROM ME." But he put his arms around her anyway, and they ended up embracing in a kiss |
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During a reddish Manhattan sunset
as incapacitated photographer Jeff (James Stewart) dozed, the courtyard
outside his rear window buzzed with activity. A shadow slowly rose up
Jeff's face as Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) (in close-up) approached, bent
over, and then lovingly kissed him. She roused and awakened him from his
sleep. She was a stylish vision of beauty - an elegant, lovely, affluent,
blonde, fashion-model-designer girlfriend; they whispered to each other,
as she suggestively asked him about his "leg", his stomach,
and his "love life" |
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| The Big Combo (1955)
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This film noir contained the notorious
scene of mobster hood-kingpin Mr. Brown's (Richard Conte) kissing of weak-willed,
abused, and unwilling society blonde girlfriend Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace)
- first on the ear, cheek, then neck, and then traveling behind her body
and out of sight, as the camera dollied in for a stunning erotic close-up
- leaving the rest up to the audience's imagination |
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In the Ferris wheel-carnival scene,
vulnerable Cal (James Dean) struggled to express his longing for his sensible
twin brother Aron's (Richard Davalos) girlfriend Abra (Julie Harris) and
she confessed her conflicted-in-love feelings for him - but after a kiss
pulled back ("I love Aron, I do, really I do") |
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| Guys and Dolls (1955)
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In this Samuel Goldwyn production (by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz) developed from a story by Damon Runyon, slick big-city gambler Sky Masterson (a slightly miscast Marlon Brando) made a $1,000 bet that he could romance/seduce Salvation Army 'doll' Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons); during a scene over drinks, she came closer and closer to his lips before their intimate kiss -- telling the "full time sinner" that she wanted to be with him and that he wouldn't be fighting sin alone anymore because she was on a mission to save him: "Whatever you do, wherever you go...I want to be with you...anytime, anywhere..." |
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Near the film's end, an avaricious and determined Lily (Gaby Rodgers) greeted hard-boiled detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) with a wide smile and a gun: "Hello, Mike. Come in. Come in." Seductively, she commanded sexual favors from him: "Kiss me, Mike. I want you to kiss me. Kiss me. The liar's kiss that says 'I love you' means something else. You're good at giving such kisses. Kiss me." With the femme fatale's destructive sexuality and promise of the kiss of death, she fired point-blank into the midsection of the misogynistic hero before he reached her, and he fell to the floor - wounded |
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Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.
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. 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)! 
are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 
Sealing One's Fate Kiss