# Movies were the lovers never kiss. (Mild spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 16, 2004, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445 "2004-05-16T17:40:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/21 "2004-05-16T22:05:21Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > \*My Fair Lady/Pygmalion \* That’s because they wern’t lovers!!! Can’t we just take the story at it’s word and believe two people can become vitally important to each other without it being romantic…even if they have differing genitalia?? That it wasn’t a romance is one of the things I always liked about that story 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/22 "2004-05-16T22:06:18Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned _The Remains of the Day._ Or another Hopkins-as-repressed-Englishman-stock-character-number-12 flick _84 Charing Cross Road_, a true story which for those who haven’t seen it is about a London bookseller who for 30 years discusses books, the universe & everything with Helen Hanff, a Jewish NYC writer, and the two gradually become very close friends and at least implicitly fall in love yet never meet- they only communicate through letters and are never even on the same continent ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/23 "2004-05-16T22:25:08Z")
Don Bluth’s _Titan A.E._ Which almost, sort of, counts. Kinda. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/24 "2004-05-17T00:40:25Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > That’s because they wern’t lovers!!! > > Can’t we just take the story at it’s word and believe two people can become vitally important to each other without it being romantic…even if they have differing genitalia?? > > That it wasn’t a romance is one of the things I always liked about that story 🙂 But it was! Why do you think Shaw named the source play after Pygmalion? It’s a lover story about two very damaged people. Of course, she did marry Freddy… ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/25 "2004-05-17T01:33:57Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > That it wasn’t a romance is one of the things I always liked about that story 🙂 Well there is the line _not all men are…confirmed bachelors… like me and the colonel_, but I think that generally speaking most people **do** see it as a romance. _Pygmalion_ can be argued either way (I’ve always seen Higgins as either gay or asexual, in part due to the confirmed bachelors line- though a gay man and a straight-woman _can_ have romantic feelings for each other), but it would be far more difficult to argue that _My Fair Lady_ is not a love story: 1: Higgins becomes livid when Liza mentions leaving him for Freddy 2: In the firefight after the ball, Pickering ignores Liza just as much as Higgins does, but she doesn’t get even a fraction as mad at him as towards Higgins 3: In the song _I Could Have All Night_ (which wasn’t just a celebration of finally conquering a diction exercise) she sings _I only know when **he** began to dance with me I could have danced danced danced… all night_ She had danced with both Pickering and Higgins that night but there’s no doubt who the **he** she was referring to is- she didn’t say “they” did she? 4: She _NEVER_ sings a lovesong about Freddy other than the sexually frustrated _Show Me_ which follows her fight with Higgins 5: The final song _I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face_ was **definitely** a love-song, at least according to Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote it for his third wife Nancy Olson (of _Sunset Blvd_ fame) and worked it into the musical. (The original title of the song was _My God You’re Lovely_ and it was written when he was looking at her one day and, in that way all longtime lovers do, suddenly realized just how beautiful she was all anew and why he fell in love with her to begin with. To him it was the moment when Higgins finally realizes he is in love with Eliza, but he won’t admit it even to himself so he couches it as “I’m accustomed to her… she’s second nature to me.” [Let’s hope it worked better for Higgins than for Lerner- Nancy divorced him soon after _My Fair Lady_ opened and he married five more times; he once said that twixt the alimony paid by him and his bud Rex Harrison they’d supported more women than the Cross Your Heart Bra. Source: _The Street Where I Live_, Alan Jay Lerner.) ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/26 "2004-05-17T03:55:03Z")
Every Bollywood musical ever made. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/27 "2004-05-17T04:15:55Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > > [@eve](#): > > > > “Where” the lovers never kiss!!! > > > > Sorry, just had to get that out of my system . > > :smack: > > That is ok **Eve** , I deserve that. I have to thank you. As I am back in college, I need the help of all the grammar nazis in the SDMB! 😉 Well, if you really want to get into it… “_in which_ the lovers never kiss.” ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/28 "2004-05-17T05:14:57Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > _Pygmalion_ can be argued either way (I’ve always seen Higgins as either gay or asexual, in part due to the confirmed bachelors line I always thought he had Oedipal issues going on, personally… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Engineer\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9fc29f/32.png) [@Engineer\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engineer_Dude)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/29 "2004-05-17T12:40:16Z")
_The X-Files: Fight the Future_ . Mulder tells Scully about how she has given him courage and made him a whole person. They are about to kiss, but one of the bees from the large colony that they encountered earlier stings her and makes her weak, and he has to get her medical help. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/30 "2004-05-17T19:39:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Hmm. If Rex Harrison had a “No Kissing” clause, so did Tom Hanks, Consider: Didn’t Forrest Gump and his lady fair kiss at least once? Certainly, they made love. And I’m pretty sure that Mulder and Scully kissed in one of the TV episodes, but it was at a New Year’s party, so might not count. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/31 "2004-05-17T20:41:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Cyrano de Bergerac ! Love the final scene with Cyrano and Roxane. Are you sure they don’t kiss? Admittidly, I’ve never seen the movie, but I’m currently reading the play, and I’m quite sure that in the play, they kiss. Also, it could be argued that at one point Roxane is in love with Chrischan, and they kiss multiple times. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/32 "2004-05-18T01:03:06Z")
Okay, maybe it was the drugs, the booze, or the near-naked girl that distracted me last night, but while watching _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_ again, I kinda noticed… did Eddie and Dolores ever get some lip-lockin’? I recall two times when they were _going_ to, but they were interrupted by Roger both times (and Eddie and Roger got some good smoochin’, but hey, _everybody_ kisses the rabbit, eventually). ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/33 "2004-05-18T02:42:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And I’m pretty sure that Mulder and Scully kissed in one of the TV episodes, but it was at a New Year’s party, so might not count. No, I wouldn’t count that either, but they did kiss “for real” in the last episode where Mulder was a regular. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2004, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/34 "2004-05-18T03:25:48Z")
Oriental Ass Masters vs Big Booty Ghetto Gals - …I don’t recall a single kiss in that movie [sub] I kid the porn industry… I do![/sub] ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2004, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445/35 "2004-05-18T03:33:44Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > That’s because they wern’t lovers!!! > > Can’t we just take the story at it’s word and believe two people can become vitally important to each other without it being romantic…even if they have differing genitalia?? > > That it wasn’t a romance is one of the things I always liked about that story 🙂 So why does Eliza come back to Professor Higgins in the end? She doesn’t need any more grammar lessons, does she? Actually, at the end of Shaw’s _Pygmalion,_ Eliza goes off with young aristocrat, Freddy Arnsford-Hill, leaving Higgins to seethe in inexplicable jealousy. At the end of the movie _My Fair Lady[_ (and, for all I know, at the end of the Broadway musical, too) Higgins sings “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face,” Eliza comes back, and Higgins triumphantly calls for his slippers. They never kiss, but a domestic future is definitely implied. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-were-the-lovers-never-kiss-mild-spoilers/245445.md?page=1)