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5 Hot + Historic Silver Screen Kisses to Celebrate the Great Global Kiss-In

By Daniel Villarreal May 14, 2010 at 2:39pm · Updated on February 13, 2011
This weekend LGBT folks around the world will fight homo- and transphobia by publicly swapping spit in the Great Global Kiss-In. But when you’re done re-applying lip-gloss or popping Valtrex, brush up on these five monumental, silver-screen gay kisses that brought us all the way from the celluloid closet to Brokeback Mountain. Pucker up! (Smooching synopses via)
Wings (1927)
WHO KISSES WHO?: A male soldier kisses his dying friend. WHAT’S THE REST OF THE FILM ABOUT?: Jack and David are rivals over the lovely Sylvia Lewis. When they enlist as WWI fighter pilots, they become friends—tragedy ensues. WHY IS THE KISS SO HOT?: “The climax of the story comes with the epic Battle of Saint-Mihiel. David is shot down and presumed dead. However, he survives the crash, steals a German biplane, and heads for the Allied lines. By a tragic stroke of bad luck, Jack, who is bent on avenging his friend, spots the German plane and shoots David down. When Jack lands to check on the wreckage, he becomes distraught and places a lingering kiss on the mouth of his friend just before he dies.” LOVE PECK: Wings is the only silent film to ever win an Academy Award for Best Picture.
Morocco (1930)
WHO KISSES WHO?: Marlene Dietrich kisses a female audience member. WHAT’S THE FILM ABOUT?: In her American film debut, Marlene Dietrich phonetically recites English lines while choosing between her rich lover and a handsome Legionnaire—heartache ensues. WHY IS THE KISS SO HOT?: “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. It’s 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.” LOVE PECK: The 1931 German film Girls in Uniform was the first film to show an illicit lesbian love affair, though we’re not sure if the fraus in that movie actually kiss.
Some Like It Hot (1959)
WHO KISSES WHO?: Chanteuse Marilyn Monroe kisses Jack Lemmon dressed as a woman. WHAT’S THE FILM ABOUT?: To hide from murderous mobsters, struggling musicians Joe and Terry join an all-female band as Josephine and Geraldine. Josephine ends up falling for the band’s vocalist Sugar (played by a very steamy Marilyn Monroe)—Shakespearean hijinks ensue. WHY IS THE KISS SO HOT?: “At the film’s conclusion, Joe watched a soulful, sad Sugar singing the poignant I’m Through With Love; he decided that he was ready to reveal the truth about Josephine to Sugar; dressed as Josephine, he came up to her and gave her a goodbye kiss as a female – a moment of sexual exposure; he affirmed the bond between them – both as an empathizing female and as a man after a full masculine kiss on the lips; at first believing that he was the millionaire who had just broken her heart, Sugar opened her eyes, looked up and exclaimed: “Josephine!” Symbolically, she loved both his masculine and feminine personalities—both Joe and Joe-sephine).” LOVE PECK: Charlie Chaplin had a similar “gay” kiss in his 1916 film Behind the Screen. It it, he kisses a young girl who has dressed as a man to get a job working in a factory. Charlie’s homophobic boss starts mocking his prissiness—what a turd merchant.
Making Love (1982)
WHO KISSES WHO?: Harry Hamlin (who played Perseus in the original Clash of the Titans) kisses Michael Ontkean (who played the sheriff in television’s Twin Peaks). WHAT’S THE FILM ABOUT?: LA Doctor Zack is married to a woman, but secretly longs for slutty homo-novelist Bart. Reckoning ensues. WHY IS THE KISS SO HOT?: “Director Arthur Hiller’s bold breakthrough R-rated film with mainstream stars in a pre-AIDS era was significant as the first non-exploitative, gay-themed Hollywood film produced and marketed for a general audience to address openly and directly the bi-sexual male character without vilification; it included a controversial kissing scene in which LA doctor Zack (Ontkean) left his loyal and intelligent wife Clair (Kate Jackson) after eight years of marriage for young homosexual writer Bart McGuire (Hamlin) – featuring their passionate male tongue-kissing (a milestone for a major studio feature film); it caused audiences extreme upset and discomfort at the time.” LOVE PECK: We almost included the 1971 UK film Sunday, Bloody Sunday into this list because it was “the first major motion picture to feature two gay characters kissing on the lips.” In it, the fiftyish gay Dr. Daniel Hirsch (Peter Finch) kisses bisexual sculptor Bob Elkin (Murray Head). But we chose Making Love instead because it was a groundbreaking American film featuring mainstream actors (and thus, a bigger deal).

Desert Hearts (1985)

WHO KISSES WHO?: NYC divorcee-to-be Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) kisses Las Vegas casino worker Cay (Patricia Charbonneau).

WHAT’S THE FILM ABOUT?: Uptight literature professor Vivian falls for free-spirited Cay during her visit to the Nevada desert. The only problem is that Vivian has never been with a woman and Cay isn’t sure she if can live with Vivian in NYC—drama ensues.

WHY IS THE KISS SO HOT?: “This ground-breaking low-budget film was a seminal gay film from first-time director Donna Deitch – it was the first full-length lesbian-themed feature film written and directed by a woman; it told about a thirty-ish prim and meek literature professor from NYC named Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) in the late 50s seeking a divorce outside of Reno at a ranch; there, she slowly explored a romantic and intimate lesbian relationship with the ranch owner’s beautiful step-daughter – a lusty, free-spirited casino worker named Cay (Patricia Charbonneau in her first film role); this led to their first kiss in a rainstorm, and later a non-exploitatively-filmed love scene in a hotel room that was shot in real-time; reportedly, it was the first mainstream lesbian movie to end positively; this film won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1986.”

LOVE PECK: We thought about mentioning the 1983 film The Hunger for its lesbian vampire scene full of biting, kissing, and nipple sucking. But Desert Hearts doesn’t make a monster out of its lesbians.

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21 Comments*

  • Jade Plant

    Actually if you watch closely the kiss Buddy Rogers gives Richard Arlen in “Wings” is not on Arlen’s mouth; it’s directly to the left of Arlen’s mouth.

  • james_in_cambridge

    @Jade Plant: Whatever. With all the hair stroking and face fondling, it was still super-gay.

  • Jeff

    I know it’s not historic, but the gay kiss from Big Daddy (starting around 4minutes into this clip) drove me crazy when I was a repressed teenage queen.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3rlf_8GQEE

  • fredo777

    @Jeff: The one with the darker hair is really handsome.

  • David Ehrenstein

    You forgot “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “My Beautiful Laundrette.”

  • jason

    I couldn’t help but laugh when I read that the San Franscisco gays – those paragons of activism (cough, cough) – were going to have their kiss-in in Castro Street. Puh-lease, give me a break.

  • alan brickman

    wings shows that straight guys do love each other without being gay….stop the straight hate….

  • Jon (yep, the other)

    it’s really too bad that this clip from “Wings” is such bad quality. If you ever have a chance to see the restored and time corrected version it will blow your mind not only as beautiful cinema, but taken in historical context it is a stirring film.

  • comixbear

    The Wings was romantic, but I couldn’t help but breaking out laughing when the line was posted on how he was trying to get just one more heinie for him! 😉

  • Shade

    Looks like the Morocco clip leads to wings. Youtube has the clip if you search morocco and Marlene. I’m not sure if it’s allowed to post links in comments.

  • Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England)

    My Beautiful Laundrette blows ALL these movies out of the water when it comes to celluloid kisses!

  • myrios123

    Wings clip was romantic, beautiful, and so sad.

  • Daniel

    The reason I didn’t choose My Beautiful Laundrette is because it wasn’t a “first” in the same way these movies are. Laundrette was 1985, True Love was 1982.

  • Daniel

    @David Ehrenstein: Oh, also we did mention Sunday Bloody Sunday and my reasons for not including it on page 5 of this article.

  • David Ehrenstein

    @Daniel: Harry Hamlin is a bigger deal than Peter Finch?

    In What Alternate Universe?

  • David Ehrenstein

    “Sunday Bloody Sunda” also contains my favorite line of dialogue in the entire history of the cinema: “Here come those tired old tits again!”

  • ossurworld

    Those too young fail to understand the differences between 1928, 1968, and today.

  • Eminent Victorian

    These are good selections. I’d never seen the “Wings” clip and so now will seek the movie out, so thanks for that!

    What about Derek Jarman’s “Sebastiane” from 1976?

  • Geoff M

    I remember watching Johnny Carson because Kate Jackson was going to be on *very gay 10 year old* and she was promoting this movie. I got so excited, because this genre was so so rare. Carson was VERY uncomfortable when she described the movie and showed the clip…which wasn’t even between Ontkean and Hamlin. I had to wait until I was in highschool seven years later to secretly rent it from the video store. Great choice to include this!

  • jason

    What concerns me about this “great global kiss-in” is that it’s got all the hallmarks of a neatly packaged stunt, one that can be folded and put away until the next year. Moreover, consider the fact that the San Francisco one is being held in Castro Street. LOL. It’s like holding an anti-nuclear protest in front of Greenpeace’s headquarters.

    Where is the radicalism in it? Where is the subversiveness? Where is the challenge to sleazy straight guys and their female enablers? I frankly can’t see any. We ought to be holding our kiss-ins in front of every single fucking institution that is homophobic, conservative or liberal.

    Include straight nightclubs that ban gay men from entering, include Hollywood movie studios that filter out our stories and lives from movies, include record companies that have a policy of banning male-male sensuality from music videos, include porn companies with their bisexual double standard, include the headquarters of the NFL.

    Unfortunately, we’ve fallen into the trap in recent years of wanting to be “nice’ and “not offensive”. We’re not going to get fucking anywhere this way.

  • alan brickman

    i agree with Arthur Laurents…Dietrich did it better than anyone…support her more!!!

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