K is for Kissing

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Kissing's great isn't it? It's a bit like sex only you don't need to get undressed to do it and people don't call the police if you do it in public. It's even allowed in children's films. PG Sex. The sexy kind of kissing, obviously, because that's the sort of kissing we're interested in here. This is a romance blog after all.

I've compiled a list of some of my favourite on-screen kisses. I've stuck to M/F tongue wrestling only for the list to keep the numbers down. I think M/M and F/F kiss scenes require a whole separate post of their own.

The Kiss (1896)

The world's first onscreen kiss. The 47 second film directed by William Heise for Thomas Edison's studios wasn't originally going to be publicly distributed. It  was intended to demonstrate how well film could handle close-ups. The public lapped it up though. I particularly love the part just before the kiss where the guy twiddles his moustache in preparation. I may give the hero of my next book a moustache just so I can have him do some pre-snogging twiddling.


There was a bit of an outcry at the time with one critic calling it "absolutely disgusting". It seems like a bit of an overreaction but then these days we have Celebrity Love Island and Two Girls, One Cup so maybe the guy could just spot a thin end of a wedge when he saw one.

Breakfast Club

The relationship's never going to last. I don't think they even like one another that much but it's a great kiss none-the-less. The best 80's bad boy from the best 80's movie. Why did none of the detentions I had at secondary school finish up like this?

Angel - "Hero"

There are plenty of great kisses in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That time Buffy kissed Angel just before sending him to hell. Buffy and Spike's first kiss at the end of the musical episode, "Once More With Feeling". But the very best kiss in the Buffyverse (and yes I hate myself a tiny bit for typing that)  happened in the spin-off series, Angel. Half-demon Doyle kisses Cordelia just before sacrificing himself to save the world. The scene was made even more poignant by the fact that actor Glenn Quinn was already dead by the time I watched this so there was no doubt that the character was never, ever coming back.

Son of the Sheik

Rudolph Valentino's kisses famously used every film inch that the censors would allow. His scenes with Vilma Banky in this film blur the lines between consensual and non-consensual kissing while he sultrily glowers for all he's worth. You can see why women went nuts for him.

Friends

Don't pretend like you didn't care. You cared. We all cared, Ross finally got the girl of his dreams and they live happily ever after. For a bit until it was all off. And then on again. And then off again. And then, finally, inexplicably on.

Emma

Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam star in my favourite adaptation of my favourite book by my favourite author, Douglas McGrath's 1996 film stayed pretty close to Austen's original text. Except for the kissing bit. No way would Austen permit Knightley and Emma to snog the faces off one another in public. 

Press Gang

This last one is my absolutely favourite but unless you are from the UK and pretty much exactly the same age as me, the chances of it meaning anything to you at all are pretty small.

Press Gang was a children's television show written by Doctor Who and Sherlock's Stephen Moffat in the late '80s. It was about a bunch of teens who ran the Junior Gazette newspaper. Julia Salwalha played Lynda, the editor and Dexter Fletcher was a super-cool wise-cracking American who pursued uptight Lynda throughout the first couple of series. The "will they / won't they?" dynamic played out between the pair of them and finally they DID! (Kiss, that is. This was a kid's show.) I was so happy about it, I did a bit of a dance round the living room. 

I can't find the clip on YouTube but their dialogue from that scene is pretty much permanently seared into my brain anyway.

Lynda: I don't want you to get the wrong idea about this kiss.
Spike: Absolutely. This is just a platonic kiss between friends.
Lynda (smiling): See, I knew you would get the wrong idea. Spike, you're shaking.
Spike: Nah, I'm steady as a rock. It's just the earth that's moving.

Oh my god, he was just so perfect.

At least this is how I remember it. If you recall differently, let me know and we can have a long detailed discussion about it. I'll be mostly saying "Spike was so dreeeeamy!" and humming the theme tune.

So what are your favourite on-screen kisses? Let me know in the comments below.

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