Cactus Flower (1969)

Uncertain Kiss

In this light-hearted late 60s romantic comedy by director Gene Saks, middle-aged, single, philandering Fifth Avenue dentist Dr. Julian Winston (Walter Matthau) proposed that his spinsterish, long-time nurse receptionist of ten years, Miss Stephanie Dickinson (Ingrid Bergman), pose as his super-competent, dignified and gracious "office wife."

"You could do me a great service. You see, I'm desperately in need of a wife...Oh, please don't misunderstand me...I need a wife temporarily, fifteen or twenty minutes... I want someone to play the part of my wife....If only you would. It wouldn't involve any, uh, I mean...all you'd have to do is tell a certain person that you want a divorce. You see, I've suddenly decided I want to get married. I guess I didn't tell you...Her name is Toni Simmons...My problem is, she thinks I'm already married...At the moment, I have to dig up a wife...She won't get married unless she meets my wife. I mean, she's very straightforward. She doesn't want to be a housebreaker, I mean a housewrecker. Isn't that sweet?"

It was part of a ruse of the commitment-phobic dentist to convince his suicidal girlfriend/fiancee Toni Simmons (Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Goldie Hawn) that he had been mired in a loveless marriage, and was delayed seeking a divorce. Earlier, he had told her a little "white lie" that he had a wife and three children.

Lovelorn Miss Dickinson thought it was a "contemptible" way that she was being used, but she ultimately acquiesed to Julian's request, because of her hidden crush on him. At one point, he told her:

"I think I'm going to kiss you."

She replied encouragingly: "When will you know for sure?" After they kissed passionately, he vowed: "I plan to do this often." She responded: "I'll make a note to remind you."

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969, UK)

The Only James Bond Pre-Marital Kiss

This was the only James Bond film in which agent 007 (George Lazenby) married one of his romantic conquests, after having two other trysts! She was the only Mrs. James Bond in the entire series.

His first love-making encounter with headstrong, independent-spirited, and suicidal Contessa Teresa (or "Tracy") Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), was in his South of France hotel room, after he covered a gambling debt for her. Lying on his balcony's lounge-bed, she stated that she was there for "a business transaction" - to repay her debt of 20,000 Francs to him - she kissed Bond.

After spending the night with Bond, he was awakened the next morning and discovered she had left (and checked out). In his bedside drawer, Bond's gun had been replaced by two 10,000 Franc gambling chips, he had been "paid in full."

Later after she became convinced that he really loved her, Bond still went ahead and had two other trysts with "Angels of Death" - hypnotized allergy patients at Piz Gloria, the headquarters of SPECTRE chief Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas). However, his real love remained Tracy.

After she helped him evade Blofeld during pursuit, they sought refuge together during a blinding snowstorm in a barn. As they kissed and spoke intimately to each other, Bond considered finding another profession and confessed his true love for Tracy - and then proposed marriage

"I know I'll never find another girl like you...Will you marry me?"

He called her "Mrs. James Bond" while kissing her, but then announced that they wouldn't make love: "The proper time for this is our wedding night, and that's my New Years' resolution." But then he collapsed her bed above him, so that she fell into his arms: "It's not New Year yet."

In the film's conclusion after Bond's mission was completed, they were married in Portugal at her father's ranch They drove away for their honeymoon. Stopping by the side of the road, he removed flowers from their adorned car to give to her, while she was mentioning that the best wedding present she had already received was "a future." He kissed her with a flower between her lips - it was their last kiss.

Suddenly in the film's tragic ending, without warning, MP-40 submachine gun fire from a passing silver Mercedes 600 sedan (driven by Blofeld) strafed their car in a drive-by shooting, and she was hit in the forehead by a bullet through the windshield and instantly killed. He cradled her in his arms.

Love Story (1970)

"I Care" Kiss, and Snowy Kisses

There were a number of touching, oft-remembered kissing scenes in this tearjerker romance from director Arthur Hiller that featured the star-crossed couple:

• upper-class Oliver "Preppie" Barrett IV (Ryan O'Neal)
• Radcliffe music student Jenny Cavalleri (Ali MacGraw) from a Catholic, Italian-American blue-collar family

Their major scene was walking across Harvard campus and talking about their relationship. Oliver delivered a harsh ultimatum to Jenny, and challenged her to have the courage to care:

"Look, Cavalleri, I know your game, and I'm tired of playing it. You are the supreme Radcliffe smart-ass - the best - you can put down anything in pants. But verbal volleyball is not my idea of a relationship. And if that's what you think it's all about, why don't you just go back to your music wonks, and good luck. See, I think you're scared. You put up a big glass wall to keep from getting hurt. But it also keeps you from getting touched. It's a risk, isn't it, Jenny? At least I had the guts to admit what I felt. Someday, you're gonna have to come up with the courage to admit you care."

They stopped walking as she replied, simply: "I care" before they kissed. The scene dissolved into their nude embracing and kissing during love-making in his dormitory room.

Shortly later in the film, in a snowy montage, they ended up playing in the snow, making snow angels, running and chasing after each other, wrestling together, eating snow, making a snowman (and kissing), tossing a football at each other in a stadium, and collapsing in each other's arms with kisses and flecks of snow on their faces.

Love Story (1970)

Marital Vows-Kisses

Another well-remembered scene was the marriage ceremony between Oliver and Jenny, with their vows spoken first by Jenny, as the camera circled around them:

Jenny: "And our two souls stand up erect and strong, face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher
until the lengthening wings break into fire at either curved point. What bitter wrong can the earth do to us that we should not long be here contented? Think! In mounting higher, the angels would press on us, and aspire to drop some golden orb of perfect song into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay rather on earth, beloved, where the unfit contrarious moods of men recoil away and isolate pure spirits, and permit a place to stand and love in for a day with darkness and the death-hour rounding it."
Oliver: "l give you my hand! l give you my love more precious than money. l give you myself before preaching or law. Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? l, Oliver Barrett, take you, Jennifer Cavilleri, to be my wedded wife from this day forward, to love and to cherish til death do us part."
Jenny: "l, Jennifer Cavilleri, take you, Oliver Barrett, as my wedded husband from this day forward,
to love and to cherish till death do us part." (Oliver placed a ring on her left hand)
Minister: "By the authority vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I pronounce you man and wife."

Love Story (1970)

Last Kisses

After meeting many obstacles and making sacrifices, Jenny was diagnosed as terminally ill when she was tested for pregnancy. She tried to put up a confident front and encourage Oliver: "I'm counting on you to be strong, you god-damn hockey jock...You, after all, are going to be the merry widower...Yes you will be. I want you to be merry. You'll be merry, OK?"

Jenny died in his arms at the hospital in a tear-inducing closing. With Oliver at her deathbed side, she was upset with him that he was looking guilty and blaming himself:

Jenny: "Now you've got to stop being sick...That guilty look on your face, it's sick. Stop blaming yourself, you stupid preppy. It's nobody's fault. It's not your fault. That's the only thing I'm gonna ask you. Otherwise, I know you're gonna be OK. Screw Paris!"
Oliver: "What?"
Jenny: "Screw Paris and music and all that stuff you thought you stole from me. I don't care, don't you believe that? (He nodded 'no') Then get the hell out of here! I don't want you at my god-damn deathbed!"
Oliver: "I believe you. I really do."
Jenny: "That's better."

She made a last request of him:

"Would you please do something for me, Ollie? (He kissed her hand) Would you please hold me? (He half-heartedly hugged her) No, I mean really hold me. Next to me."

He reclined next to her on the bed, and she was dead by the next scene.

M*A*S*H (1970)

"Hot Lips" Kisses

In director Robert Altman's antic-filled ensemble satire on the Korean War, there were two celebrated scenes of the pranks played by the members of the free-wheeling 4077th M*A*S*H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) camp on uptight chief nurse Major Margaret Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), who deservedly earned the nickname "Hot Lips."

In one of the funny scenes, they broadcast (as a "little radio show") on loudspeakers her love-making tryst with hypocritical tee-totaler Major 'Frank' Burns (Robert Duvall):

Hot Lips: "We've grown very close in a short time." (She unbuttoned her blouse)
Frank: "It isn't just chance. I'm sure of that. God meant us to find each other."
Hot Lips: (She flashed her breasts to him) "His will be done."

As he hungrily was atop her and undressing and they began making love (in the dark), she cried out:

Hot Lips: "Oh, Frank. Let me get it. I'll help you. Oh, yes."
Frank: "Get my zipper. My zipper..."
Hot Lips: (groaning) "Oh, oh Frank...Oo, Frank...Oh, Frank. Oh, Frank, my lips are hot. Kiss my hot lips."
Frank: "Yes, they are hot."
Hot Lips: "Oh, Frank, yes."
Frank: "Darling."
Hot Lips: "Oh, Frank! Oh, Frank! Strangle me. Hard! Frank...Oh, yes. Ohh!...Oh, Major. Frank."

Zabriskie Point (1970)

Dust-Swirling, Hallucinatory Kisses and Love Making in the Desert

In Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's simplistic film of a failed view of America, there was an extraordinary sequence in a most unlikely place. It was an hallucinatory fantasy, and a dust-swirling lovemaking orgy sequence in the desert sand dunes (at the lowest point in the United States - Zabriskie Point).

Two disconnected young people met there:

• Mark (Mark Frechette), a student radical wanted as a suspect for killing a policeman during a student strike-riot and for hijacking a small airplane
• Daria (Daria Halprin), the pot-smoking secretary/mistress of LA real estate tycoon/attorney Mr. Allen (Rod Taylor), who was helping to build the Sunnydunes development in the desert

The couple parked at an overlook, then ran down into a dry river-bed area, where they began making love. Other copulating and kissing couples magically appeared, creating a massive 'love-in.'

Summer of '42 (1971)

Teenaged Kisses of Comfort for Lost Husband

Director Robert Mulligan's coming-of-age drama was told in flashback by a middle-aged man, telling about his short, life-altering summer romance on 1940s Nantucket Island. He remembered back to his sexual awakening and coming of age as a teen:

• young teenager "Hermie" (Gary Grimes)
• lonely, beautiful 22 year-old neighboring war bride Dorothy (Jennifer O'Neill)

The pivotal scene occurred after Dorothy learned by telegram that her husband had been killed in action during WWII. When Hermie entered her eerily-quiet beach-home, he saw a bottle of whiskey, cigarette butts, and a government telegram.

With tears in her eyes and slightly drunk, she came out of her bedroom and put her head on Hermie's shoulder. She slowly danced (barefooted) with him to the tune (the film's theme song) playing on a phonograph record, and tenderly kissed him a few times before beckoning him to her bedroom for comfort.

After he left her that evening on the porch, that was the last time he saw her, after she had quietly told him: "Good night, Hermie." Soon after, he read a note that Dorothy had left for him.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971, UK)

Gay Kissing

This groundbreaking, acclaimed UK melodrama by director John Schlesinger was notable for its tale of a romantic triangle between:

• straight businesswoman Alexandra (or "Alex") Greville (Glenda Jackson), a recruitment consultant
• fiftyish gay Jewish doctor, Dr. Daniel Hirsch (Peter Finch)

They both loved the same young man - bisexual artist/sculptor Bob Elkin (Murray Head).

It was the first major (or mainstream) motion picture to feature two gay characters kissing on the lips, in a sympathetic and realistic portrayal of homosexual relations. After a greeting hug and some pleasantries, the two kissed each other - it was a long and deep kiss.

THX 1138 (1971)

Illicit Kissing and Emotions in a Futuristic Police State

In a post-apocalyptic, oppressive futuristic, underground world of the 25th century set up as a police state, envisioned by director George Lucas in this short 81 minute theatrical film, people were required to wear white gowns and shave their heads - and "programmed for perfect happiness".

Two individuals who refused to take their state-required, prescribed, anti-emotion drug doses that suppressed sexual desire were:

• THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), a robot-building production line worker
• LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie), his female roommate

They began to experience illegal sexual feelings for each other, including passionate kissing and love-making, but then were caught and arrested by the black-garbed android enforcement police, for drug evasion and for committing sexual intercourse.

He experienced a brief reunion when he was imprisoned in a completely-white limbo world, and she told him she was pregnant ("I'm going to have a child"). They kissed uncontrollably after shedding their white garments before interrupted by the android police.

A short time later, THX found out that LUH's identification number had been reassigned to Foetus 66691 in a growth chamber - she had been declared 'incurable' and consumed (or killed).