First man-on-man kiss in film? - Wings (1929) Discussion

[–] The-Silent-Photoplayer 19 years ago

Hardly. There was a male to male kiss (interracial, even) in the now-lost D.W. Griffith WWI epic, THE GREATEST THINGS IN LIFE. In the scene, a black soldier is mortally wounded and is delerious just before he dies. His white comerade pretends to be his mother to soothe him and kisses him just before he dies.

-J. Theakston
The Silent Photoplayer
http://www.thephotoplayer.com/

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[–] rwsmith29456 17 years ago

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Hardly. There was a male to male kiss (interracial, even) in the now-lost D.W. Griffith WWI epic, THE GREATEST THINGS IN LIFE. In the scene, a black soldier is mortally wounded and is delerious just before he dies. His white comerade pretends to be his mother to soothe him and kisses him just before he dies

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I find that to be unbelievably touching. For real.

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[–] auc476 12 years ago

And in another DW Griffith film: Intolerance. When the Babylonians are being attacked, and the priest (or king?) says good-bye to his faithful bodygaurd.

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[–] edjdonnell 19 years ago

thats your only motive? I don't think it's not the type of kiss you got swirling around in your mind. The guy is dying, it's his school friend saying good bye, times where different, stop reading todays decay into peoples interactions yesterday.

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[–] beesting_12_dot 19 years ago

Errr...that was partly my motive. I thought it was pretty interesting to see that on film, and I knew it was just because they were friends. I mean come on! I mean really. I'm not a sicko perv owl-face with hooves in my nose.

JOAN CRAWFORD IS THE FREAKING BEST!!!

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[–] dain_bramaged_926 18 years ago

I really enjoyed that kiss, as a straight female. I don't know WHYYYYY!

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] hello_vertigo 18 years ago

I enjoyed the kiss too, and I'm a female. I only saw it in "The Celluloid Closet" and the kiss was so cute!!

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[–] twistedude 17 years ago

That kiss was one of the hottest things IN The Celluloid Closet! (It appears ON THE DISC of that movie--you know, etched in). And that's why I bought the film ("Wings"), which I don't have time to watch for two days. People have gotten tired of calling me sicko; now they just great me with stoney silence.
Unless, of course, they're similarly afflicted....I see a few souls popping ou of lotuses here; that's nice.

In "The Celluloid Closet," the kiss is prresented as something that wasn't supposed to be hot, and everyone accepted it, because they knew the two men were just buddies....(but it was hot all the same).

"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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[–] NSurone 17 years ago

When I firsr saw WINGS in a revival theater, that kiss--indeed that whole death scene--did not elicit titters, but I did hear some weeping and nose-blowing.
That's because we knew that the two men were expressing LOVE--a male-bonding that has nothing to do with sexual desire.
BTW, I believe that Clara Bow was miscast. With that pouffed-up hair and overload of face paint, she hardly personified the "girl next door". She was effective in the scene at the Parisian cafe, but there, she was playing to type. I think Betty Bronson or Esther Ralston would have been better cast as Mary.

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[–] twistedude 17 years ago

Why should it elicit titters? It would have in the 40s, 50s and 60s, though.And how could a dying man have sexual desire anyhow? Of COUSRE it was just male bonding.

...but that don't keep it from being the hottest scene in the movie.

I thought Clara Bow, though too pretty to be the girl next door, did a fantastic job, and i wonder what her voice must have been like to keep her out of talkies!

here I meant to apologizwe for my earlier 'flip" comment...and I went and made another one.

(O/T: there's a movie made in 1945, called "Dead if Night," a horror movie with various people telling about prophetic dreams---at a house party--Michael Redgrave is terrific in it--and everyone sits around the parlour, smoking. And they didn't have any universal fans to blow the smoke away. So pretty soon, it gets so smokey in the room, you can hardly see the actors' faces! Talk about titters...) . Don't know why I brought that up...

"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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[–] MystMoonstruck 17 years ago

Clara Bow had a thick Brooklyn accent, but that wouldn't have stopped her because many other actors did, too, yet succeeded in talkies. What most books report is that Clara was so frightened of not making the leap to sound that she becamse "mike shy", sometimes freezing up till she couldn't utter a sound when the tests were shot. She had emotional and mental problems, so that only added to her difficulties. Poor girl~she had such a horrible, trouble-filled life, from childhood onward.

By the way: It may be friendship... The kiss IS bliss. Buddy is soooo pretty! Even my mom just said so. If guys can like two females; we can enjoy male/male. It's our right. You are not alone, ladies! You obviously don't know about "Slash" fan fiction and the conventions! Honest! Two of the biggest "Slash" cons are in Texas and California.

~~MystMoonstruck~~

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[–] alxnrth 17 years ago

Even though I enjoy the scene every time I see it. I find it profoundly moving, not for any sexual reason, but because these men really LOVE each other, as brothers, if you will. I can think of any number of men in my life, who, if they were facing their mortality, I would want to kiss goodbye.

Dale

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[–] twistedude 17 years ago

The scene--by the way I JUST saw the film, on TCM (although I own it)--I stumbled on it when I turned on TCM-- is really wonderful, and I don't think about sex, as distinguished from love when i watch it. There is a line in "The Cocktail Party," (which I haven't heard since 1969): "But who, or what in me was loving, I do not know." Like that.

The scene is very long, longer than I remembred from my own DVD. "You know that nothing could ever be more important to me than your friendship." "I knew it..all the time." I don't think Jack is just shining him on because he's dying. but everyone has only his own eyes.

I would say, though, that love between two men doesn't HAVE to exclude physical attraction, just because the men are not gay. At 72, "in a strange way, everything seem(s) a little mixed."

There are other things I could say (based on this..um..third viewing), but I'll let it go at that. Another viewing, in a couple of months, may change my mind again.

"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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[–] mackjay2 16 years ago

I just saw this incredible film all the way through.

My theory about THE KISS is that they really do love each other. Maybe they are just realizing it at this sadly belated moment. It's not just the kiss, look at the way they caress each other with tremendous tenderness. Sure, they like or love the women in the story, but the feelings they express in this scene are far more powerful than the hetero scenes. Men can have incredibly deep emotional connections to each other, which may or may not be realized sexually. I think this is what is going on. They were the loves of each others' lives.

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[–] twistedude 16 years ago

Yep. Couple feet of celluloid...
"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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[–] rwsmith29456 15 years ago

I just don't see anything sexual about that kind of kiss at all. It was born of grief.

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[–] Fenris_89 13 years ago

I thought it was a beautiful scene, perfectly acted. In today's society they probably wouldn't get away with that, which is sad, because it was the most powerful scene in the movie for me. Jack going to David's parents is a close second.
And I too think that it was love expressed between brothers of war, unique bonds develop in desperate times.

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[–] JaneSchmo 16 years ago

I saw The Celluloid Closet and the kiss in it some years ago and wanted to see Wings just because of that.

Loved it! So sweet.

Still, he doesn't actually kiss him. On the cheek, in the corner of his mouth. Not on the lips at all.

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[–] Henry_Framus_Valentine 12 years ago

What rot! It`s not even the first man-on-man kiss in this particular film. Just before the intermission, when Jack and David are being awarded their medals, the one-armed French officer kisses both men on both cheeks.

I find my solace then in bottles,
And I forget them axolotls.

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[–] on3gin 10 years ago

If you have the time, Framus61, watch that scene again. In awarding medals, the French traditionally kiss the recipient on both cheeks, just a peck, really, but this officer was nuzzling their necks.

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[–] georgestrum 11 years ago

I found an amazing similarity in looks with both Buddy Rogers in Wings and Lew Ayres in All Quiet On The Western Front.

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[–] hamlet-16 10 years ago

The scene is very intense and the kiss in lingering and emotional .. two friends saying goodbye... I am not sure Wellman or the 1920s audience would see it is "gay".

A pity no-one got to ask Buddy Rogers what he thought of the scene (maybe they did ???)

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