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

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.

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.

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.

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).