Closely Watched Trains (1966, Czech) (aka Ostre Sledované Vlaky)

Near-Miss Kiss

Director Jirí Menzel's war-related, coming-of-age romantic drama, a Czech New Wave film, and the 1968 winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1966 - had the intriguing tagline:

"All it takes to make a man of a boy is a woman."

Its main poster was illustrated by the film's very memorable kissing scene.

The film's main protagonist, Milos Hrma (Vaclav Neckar) - the naive, newly-hired local assistant train dispatcher at Kostomlaty station near Prague during WWII, had a persistent problem with premature ejaculation. However, the virginal adolescent struck up a growing friendship with a co-worker - the seductive, nubile conductress Masa (Jilka Bendova).

In the scene, she was positioned on the train and he was standing below her on the platform. As they both closed their eyes and puckered up toward each other, the train suddenly pulled away. Instead of contacting Masa's lips, Milos found that he had a whistle between his lips, placed there by his mentor/superior - bespectacled, short, and balding Ladislav Hubicka (Josef Somr).

Georgy Girl (1966, UK)

Startling and Impulsive Kiss

This UK romantic comedy of manners set in the era of 'free love' in the "Swinging London" of the 1960s was based upon Margaret Forster's novel. It was the first film to carry the label "suggested for mature audiences" (the M rating) - only a month after the Production Code was revised.

The film told of a threesome between:

• plump, homely, yet strong-willed and virginal misfit Georgina "Georgy" Parkin (Lynn Redgrave) in her early 20s
• Georgy's pretty yet amoral, promiscuous, calculating and self-interested roommate Meredith Montgomery (Charlotte Rampling), who became pregnant and had an unwanted child
• Meredith's randy Cockney husband Jos Jones (Alan Bates), with whom Georgy had an affair

In one startling scene during an argument, Georgy and Jos' lips suddenly met, in front of the very pregnant, bitchy and complaining Meredith. As they pulled back, Meredith quipped: "Thunderous chorus on the piano, the scream of a train going into a tunnel. Don't pass out, dear."

They stared at each other - dumbstruck. Georgy raced from the apartment when Jos attempted a second kiss. But it was the start of a secret affair between Georgy and Jos.

The Professionals (1966)

Death Kiss

Writer/director Richard Brooks' western action-adventure set in 1916 told of the hiring of four mercenaries to retrieve Maria (Claudia Cardinale), the kidnapped wife of wealthy rancher J.W. Grant (Ralph Bellamy), from the hideout of Mexican bandito Raza (Jack Palance).

In a sub-plot, one of the "professionals" - dynamiter Bill Dolworth (Burt Lancaster), said to Raza's dying bandita accomplice Chiquita (Marie Gomez) after gunning her down in the film's conclusion: "Hello, baby." She replied, "Long time since I hear 'baby'."

He raised her into his arms as she asked: "Hey, you ever find that damn gold mine, eh?" but then pointed her concealed gun at his neck and squeezed the trigger, but it clicked blank. She noted: "I am not lucky today" to which he replied: "But you're beautiful."

She reminisced about him being her past lover: "Querido, baby. We had some fine times together." He answered: "Terrific." She requested a kiss ("Give us a kiss"), and he obliged, and then she expired in his arms.

The Graduate (1967)

Nervous, Off-Guard Kiss

Director Mike Nichol's second film was an influential big hit of the mid-1960s which captured the mood of alienated youth in the character of a recent 21 year-old graduate from an upper middle-class family.

Son Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) experienced his first fearful - but lustful - bedroom encounter in a hotel for an affair with a neurotic, seductive and alcoholic neighbor. He was nervously there to have sex with the calm and almost businesslike, married Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). He arranged to meet her upstairs in a single, luxury hotel room - number 568. Feigning sleepiness and assuring the desk clerk that he had his toothbrush, Benjamin walked down the long hotel corridor to his room. After entering, he tested the lights and stood in the dark shadows surveying the room. To insure privacy, he closed the blinds and then brushed his teeth in the bathroom.

After she turned on the light upon entering, he almost immediately moved the "Don't Disturb" sign to the outside of the door, set the door lock, and turned the lights back off. He kissed her before she could exhale smoke from a drag on her cigarette.

Aggravating his bad case of nerves by her coolness, she asked before starting to undress: "I'll get undressed now, is that alright?" He queried: "Shall I just stand here? I mean, I don't know what you want me to do." He agreed to watch, and then clumsily retrieved a hanger for her clothes. He asked, ridiculously: "Wood or wire? They have both." Then, he spontaneously grabbed Mrs. Robinson's right breast and then banged his head against the wall in frustration, babbling moral platitudes ("I think you're the most attractive of all my parents' friends") and resolving to end the affair before it began. He could not believe that an older married woman, one of his parents' best friends, was seducing him.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

Revolutionary Rear View Mirror Kiss

Stanley Kramer's and Columbia Pictures' audacious, socially-conscious message film (featuring the last teaming of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) was the first truly mainstream Hollywood film to portray an inter-racial couple's romance. It was between:

• Dr. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier in a star-making role)
• his fiancee Joey Drayton (Katharine Houghton) (Note: Katharine Hepburn's actual niece)

Except for one brief revolutionary view of the couple kissing (seen in a cab driver's rear view mirror on their way to the city of San Francisco from the airport), other scenes of their physical intimacy were edited out.

Two For the Road (1967, UK)

"Bitch"-"Bastard" Kiss

This non-linear romantic comedy from director Stanley Donen told about a volatile couple's 12-year marital relationship as they made successive road-trips to the French Riviera. The couple experiencing a contentious time together during a series of road trips were:

• architect Mark Wallace (Albert Finney)
• Joanna (Audrey Hepburn)

By the film's conclusion after the couple had ultimately reconciled and accepted who they were, Mark leaned over to kiss Joanna. He endearingly called her: "Bitch" and she responded back: "Bastard."

Afterwards, their car went through a French-Italian border checkpoint and they drove away to a more resolved future in Rome.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Man and Ape - "You're So Damned Ugly" Kiss

Director Franklin J. Schaffner's sci-fi adventure-fantasy told of a planet led by talking, intelligent apes where humans were mute slave captives. Before primitive girl Nova (Linda Harrison) and displaced, time-traveling astronaut-human George Taylor (Charlton Heston) left on horseback to follow the shoreline in the film's conclusion, Taylor told Dr. Zira's young nephew Lucius (Lou Wagner): "Remember. Never trust anybody over 30."

As they stood next to crashing waves on the beach, he wished to kiss sympathetic, socially-developed scientist-ape Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) goodbye ("Doctor, I'd like to kiss you goodbye"). He asked permission, and she agreed, but added:

"All right, but you're so damned ugly."

Romeo and Juliet (1968, UK/It.)

Young Lovers Touch Hands and Kiss

Director Franco Zeffirelli's late 1960s version of the oft-told tragic romantic tale of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers broke tradition by casting teenaged lead performers for the main roles.

After circling around the perimeter of an assembled crowd during a song, teenaged Romeo (Leonard Whiting) took Juliet (Olivia Hussey) by the hand from the opposite side of a pillar, and spoke his first words to her alone - to tell her of his passion.

She responded in equal measure as they sensually pressed their hands together in this famous scene.

Romeo: "My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand, To smooth that rough touch with a gentle kiss." (He drew her to himself after kissing her.)
Juliet: "Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo: "Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?"
Juliet: "Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer."
Romeo: "O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair." (They interlocked their hands.)
Juliet: "Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake."
Romeo: "Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged." (They kissed)
Juliet: "Then have my lips the sin that they have took?"
Romeo: "Sin from my lips! O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." (They kissed again and Juliet sighed)

Separately, both Romeo and Juliet realized that they had fallen in love with someone in their family's enemy camp: (Juliet: "Oh! Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy").

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

The Famous Balcony Scene Kisses

From the Capulet garden, Romeo saw Juliet upon her balcony in front of her illuminated windows - at the start of the famous balcony scene. He began to utter his famous soliloquoy: "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? O...it is my lady, oh, it is my love. O that she knew she were...."

He heard her thinking to herself:

"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet...'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What is Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee, take all myself."

When she realized he was in her presence, she asked if he would swear that he loved her. Fearing that she was too forward and "too quickly won," she promised to deny her strong, profuse feelings of love so that he could woo her more formally. She admitted that she should have been more restrained about confiding her "true love's passion" but her love was still innocent and true.

Romeo swore his love for her by the moon, but Juliet didn't want a variable love characterized by the changing phases of the "circled orb." She only wanted him to "swear by thy gracious self." Romeo complied: "If my heart's dear love, I swear! Oh, Juliet!" - and they hugged and kissed passionately.

Juliet wished to say good night (and she sweetly kissed Romeo good-night) while fearing for his safety, and also so that the bud of their blossoming love would have time to bloom and grow into a "beauteous flower," but Romeo wished for her to remain a bit longer so they could exchange loving vows. She pleaded that she had already given her vows from her boundless bounty, as she confessed: "My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."

At the end of their evening, Juliet whispered that if Romeo wished marriage, he should send word (of where and when) the next day by messenger; he climbed the tree one more time to kiss her - and they were still kissing as dawn's light arrived; as he slipped down from the balcony - they extended their hands out to each other, as she said goodbye: "Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow."

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

360 Degree, Lengthy After-Chess Kiss

Director Norman Jewison's romantic caper film featured a dizzy 360 degree view of a 70-second kiss (mostly uninterrupted) between two individuals suspicious and wary of each other engaged in a film-long cat-and-mouse game:

• insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway)
• self-made millionaire and Bostonian criminal Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen)

They had just finished a challenging, 6 1/2 minute mostly non-verbal chess game with palpable sexual tension, foreplay and imagery. The game began after he had asked: "You play," and she responded: "Try me." In the middle of the game, she sensually touched her finger to her lips, and stroked the black bishop chess piece. When she declared "Check," he slowly stood up, leaned on the back of his chair, pulled her by the arm to her feet and suggested:

"Let's play something else."

The camera moved around the osculating couple to the tune of "The Windmills Of Your Mind."

The very long kiss finally dissolved into a blur of color.