Actually, I just checked and if you do a search for “Harlequin” on Netflix you’ll get several matches. Might be worth checking them out. Probably not much in the way of impacting cinema, but actors/actressess need to get a start somewhere.
Clearly you have never done the Double Reverse Barbary Tarantella! Granted, it requires that all four participants be double-jointed and very limber otherwise …
Have they gotten any better? One of the launch titles after the Harlequin acquisition had the heroine cut her hair and take up black armor to kill the devil while the hero was a fairy named Dominique who bottomed the first time they had sex.
Gimme a break, I read too much fanfic.
Most of the “chick flick” genre seem to be from Nicholas Sparks’ books. Love Story was adapted from Erich Segal’s book…but most of the other romance book offerings do show up on the Hallmark Channel (my mother records them all and tries to get me to watch them. If no one is killed in the first half hour, I am not interested…I prefer mysteries)
Actually the tropes of romance novels show up all the time in movies, especially period pieces. I just watched the Russell Crowe Robin Hood, and was treated to “heroine must help hero bathe” and “hero and heroine must pretend to be married and share a bedroom” and several instances of “hero must rescue heroine and carry her” of course.
There is a great trove of movies for people like me looking for the yearning, longing and sexual tension of romance novels without needed the porn parts onscreen and that is Bollywood.