Don't Look Now (1973, UK/It.)

Married Couple's Pre-Dinner Kissing/Loving

Director Nicolas Roeg's intense mystery/drama told the story of a vacationing married couple Laura (Julie Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) who were in Venice after the tragic accidental drowning demise of their daughter in England.

The film was most known for an explicit, frank, and honest three-minute love scene for its time.

As a prelude (and postlude) to the scene in their Venice hotel room (bathroom and bedroom), the married and grieving couple were preparing for dinner by showering-bathing and relaxing languorously together (creatively edited, intercut, and juxtaposed), expressing their intimate and honest love for each other and reconnecting emotionally.

She stated: "You've got toothpaste all over your mouth" to which he replied: "Eat if off" - she responded with a kiss, but told him: "I can't get it off."

She also playfully stroked his naked backside as they both stretched out on a bed looking at a newspaper. Soon, they were kissing more and eventually making love.

The scene was so explicit (and seemingly real) that it had to be edited before the film's US theatrical R-rated release.

Sleeper (1973)

A 'Nauseous' Kiss

As part of their rebellion against the totalitarian government in the year 2173 in Woody Allen's science-fiction comedy satire, futuristic rebels Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) and not-very-bright, hedonistic poetess-socialite Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton) successfully kidnapped and killed the never-seen disembodied Leader (by throwing his nose under a steamroller). Miles was skeptical of all political leaders: "Political solutions don't work. I told you that it doesn't matter who's up there. They're all terrible."

Luna guessed correctly that Miles' jealous rant about another rebel leader Erno (John Beck) was because he loved her:

Miles: "Of course I love you! What, this, this is what this is all about. And you love me, I know that. And I don't blame ya, honey...."
Luna: "But Miles, don't you see, meaningful relationships between men and women don't last. That was proven by science. You see, there's a chemical in our bodies that makes it so that we all get on each other's nerves sooner or later."
Miles: "That's science. I don't believe in science. I'm, I'm, you know, science is a, an intellectual dead-end. You know, it's a lot of little guys in tweed suits cutting up frogs on foundation grants."

After Luna had unsuccessfully tried to convince Miles that science had proven long-lasting relationships were impossible, she amusedly asked about what he really believed in:

Luna: "Oh, I see. You don't believe in science, and, and you also don't believe that the political systems work, and you don't believe in God, huh?... So then, What do you believe in?"
Miles: (in a deadpan tone) "Sex and death. Two things that come once in a lifetime -- but at least after death, you're not nauseous."

They kissed passionately as the film ended.

Chinatown (1974)

A Kiss, Close Enough to Notice a Birthmark

In this neo-noirish Roman Polanski film, a mystery thriller about both public and private corruption, private detective J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) and enigmatic Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) were at her mansion, where he noticed that all the servants had purposely been given "the night off" by Mrs. Mulwray.

Gittes changed the subject about why he had left the police force in Chinatown in his past by asking for some peroxide for his bruised nose.

He removed his bandage in the bathroom, causing Mrs. Mulwray to exclaim at the ugly, naked wound:

"God! It's a nasty cut. I had no idea."

While she dabbed on the peroxide, he noticed that she had a black speck in the green part of her eye ("Your eye...There's something black in the green part of your eye"). She confessed that there was an imperfection in her vision:

"Oh, that. It's uh, it's a fl-flaw in the iris...Yes, uh, it's a sort of birthmark."

After visually exposing both of their flaws or deficiencies, their faces were so intimately close to each other that they kissed.

A post-coital scene showed them naked in bed and leisurely smoking cigarettes.

The Godfather, Part II (1974)

"You Broke My Heart" Kiss of Death

Director Francis Ford Coppola's continuing saga of the epic Corleone family, another Best Picture winner, told of the rise of ruthless don Michael Corleone.

During a New Year's Eve celebration in Cuba that ushered in 1959 in a fancy ball in the Presidential Palace, amidst cheering, embracing, and confetti, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) whispered into traitorous brother Fredo's (John Cavale) ear as they grabbed each other:

"There's a plane waiting for us to take us to Miami in an hour, all right? Don't make a big thing about it."

He forcefully grabbed him on both sides of the face and kissed him - Sicilian style. It was the kiss of death on his lips.

"I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart."

Jaws (1975)

A Healing, Reassuring Kiss From a Son to a Father

Director Steven Spielberg's thrilling summer blockbuster about vicious shark attacks at Amity Island beach resort also contained convincing family drama.

Rife with guilt over the death of young Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees) from a great white shark attack, a rather detached Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) sat with his son Sean (Jay Mello) at the table and contemplated the events of the day.

His young son mimicked his drinking gesture with his own glass of milk. The son also imitated the way his troubled father held his hands in deep thought and then covered his face.

When Brody finally noticed that his son was copying his finger movements, he playfully made funny faces at him (the son responded with clawed hands and a shark-eating face). Martin finally talked:

Martin: "Come here. Give us a kiss."
Sean: "Why?"
Martin: "Because I need it."

As mother and wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary) looked on, Sean gave his father a reassuring peck on the cheek.

Shivers (1975) (aka They Came From Within, The Parasite Murders)

Infectious Parasitic Kisses (part 1)

Canadian writer/director David Cronenberg's scandalous early (feature film debut and first commercial success) erotic body horror film was about a group of Montreal high-rise apartment occupants who went on a sex and violence spree after being infected by parasites through sexual contact

The parasites were red-colored, bloody, invasive and worm-like (or phallic-like, similar to grotesque male genitalia) that were "a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will hopefully turn the world into one beautiful, mindless orgy."

In two different nightmarish scenes, the parasites were transmitted through kisses.

An infected Betts (Barbara Steele) (after a parasite violated her vagina while she was bathing) seductively whispered repeatedly to her female neighbor victim Janine Tudor (Susan Petrie):

Betts: "You know what I want. I want you to make love with me. Make love to me, make love to me, make love to me."
Janine: "You can't be saying that."
Betts: "Let's kiss, let's kiss...Make love to me..."

With Betts' neck visibly bulging (on the left), she passed the parasite onto her partner (on the right).

Shivers (1975, Canada) (aka They Came From Within, The Parasite Murders)

Infectious Parasitic Kisses (part 2)

In the final "baptismal" scene, the protagonist, resident physician Roger St. Luc (Paul Hampton) finally succumbed to being overpowered by the parasitic forces in an indoor swimming pool orgy.

He was kissed by his infected Nurse Forsythe (Lynn Lowry) while dunked in the water and surrounded by a group of infected inhabitants.

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Released Captive-Hostage Kisses With a Lonely Photographer

In this suspenseful political conspiracy thriller (post-Watergate) directed by Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford starred as bookish CIA operative/researcher Joe Turner (code-named "Condor") who inadvertently was away for lunch when everyone in his entire division's New York office (an American Literary Historical Society brownstone, used as a front) was assassinated by a group led by Joubert (Max von Sydow). The assassins were associated with a renegade CIA "deputy director" named Higgins (Cliff Robertson).

Fearing a conspiracy, Turner was forced to solve the mystery of the killings on his own, while hiding out in the Brooklyn Heights apartment of an innocent civilian - kidnapped hostage Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway).

He had tied her up for awhile in her bathroom, although she assured him that she wouldn't go to the police. She told him about her hobby of taking lonely-looking pictures as a photographer, as a prelude to their love-making:

Kathy: "Sometimes I take a picture that isn't like me. But I took it so it is like me. It has to be. I put those pictures away."
Joe: "I'd like to see those pictures."
Kathy: "We don't know each other that well."
Joe: "Do you know anybody that well?"
Kathy: "I don't think I want to know you very well. I don't think you're gonna live much longer."
Joe: "Well, I may surprise you. Anyway, you're not telling the truth."
Kathy: "What do you mean?"
Joe: "You'd rather be with somebody who's not gonna live much longer. At least somebody who would be on his way. You take pictures, beautiful pictures, but of empty streets, trees with no leaves in November. Why haven't you asked me to untie your hands?"
Kathy: (haltingly, and with tears) "How much do you want?"
Joe: "I just want to stop it - for a few hours. For the rest of the night, and then I'll go."

He untied her - and they kissed and made love in a very long and intense scene (with jazzy Dave Grusin music). Their love-making was intercut with close-ups of her black and white photos of park benches, bare trees, an empty road, etc. (pasted on Kathy's apartment wall).

Rocky (1976)

"I Wanna Kiss Ya" - First Kiss

The Best Picture winner of 1976 was this rousing boxing/sports film with a side-tale of a budding romance between the fighter and a supportive girlfriend. The misfit romance was between:

• Adrianna (Adrian) Pennino (Talia Shire), a painfully-shy, 30 year old, dark-haired, gawky, and spectacled pet-store clerk
• Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), a Philadelphian boxer

Their relationship began to blossom after a first kiss in one of the tenderest, most authentic and affecting scenes ever filmed. At his cramped apartment door, he begged for her not to go when she said she was uncomfortable, and he intercepted her exit.

And then he asked her for a favor - to remove her outdated glasses, noting that she had really "nice eyes." As a second favor, he asked Adrian to take off her gray wool cap, and then complimented her on how pretty she was: "I always knew you was pretty."

Self-deprecating, Adrian replied: "Don't tease me," but Rocky was respectfully sincere about her budding beauty: "I'm not teasin' ya. I ain't teasin' ya."

He leaned forward, asking to kiss her:

"I just wanna kiss ya. You don't have to kiss me back if ya don't want. I wanna kiss you."

After one soft kiss, she responded and tentatively, lightly returned the kiss. After the long-delayed moment, the pay-off was magical and natural. They passionately gave themselves to each other with more kisses and an embrace as they collapsed in each other's arms to the floor next to the front door.