The buss does not stop here: Readers have a lot to say about mouth to mouth

My observations on the new style of open-mouthed kissing in movies and on TV seem to have found an appreciative audience.

“Here at home,” write Mildred and Theodore Harbarth, “we adults have become so turned off by the film makers’ apparent competitive spirit in this regard that we often shout ‘Oh, no!, not again!’ and rush out to make a cup of tea or perhaps have a swig of something stronger. . . .”

Louise Robertson of Arcadia also notes that in its “fervor and frenzy” the contemporary movie kiss sometimes seems to be a “feat of competition.”

“You read my mind,” writes Toni Ward of San Diego, “except the open-mouth kissers remind me of two fish frantically trying to breathe. . . . I too tried the French kiss in high school. It didn’t catch on--we all thought it was a bit tacky.”

“We like old-fashioned movies,” writes Daisy Littleton of Long Beach, “where the lovers kiss nice, and sex scenes are handled by curtains blowing in a window.”

Ah, true! How many consummations were suggested by those curtains blowing in a window?; or ice melting in a glass; or heavy surf pounding on the sand.

Anyone who ever saw it cannot forget that wonderful closing sequence--was it in “42nd Street”?--that showed the long-frustrated lovers vanishing into a Pullman compartment at last, and then showed the train entering a tunnel just as it went toot-toot . Genius.

“Could I send my boyfriend in for kissing lessons?” writes Anne Donahue. “Those ‘40s-style kisses sound radical!”

Her boyfriend must go elsewhere; but Ms. Donahue may come in if she likes. I still remember the method, though I may have lost the fire.

“Right on!” writes Louise Cohen of Malibu. “How many times in an evening do we say, ‘Oh, no!--there they go again, chewing on each other!”?

My indefatigable correspondent, Jim (Fats) Phillips, plays romantic anthropologist to describe the first kiss: “I believe that in the evolution of humankind, arrival at the point in prehistoric times when the first two adolescents of opposite sex pristinely conjoined their lips in the wondrous act of kissing, the event marked the first step of the race on the road to civilization.

“For that kiss--that act of kissing--proved to engender harmony and felicity in the relationship between the two individuals of a kind and to a degree theretofore unknown in human intersexual relations. It was the perfect stimulus which induced the pair to have tender emotion, the beginning of romantic feeling, for each other; so to establish a bond of affection between them which made them want to live and be together forever. . . .”

That must have been Carol Landis and Victor Mature in “One Million BC.”

And from an old hand at movie kissing--Charlton Heston--come some personal revelations on the subject.

“Your essay ends in 1950,” he writes, “the year I made my first film. You correctly describe the firm proscriptions that trammelled the film kiss then. I’ve spent much of my time in the cinemines in heavier undertakings: sacking cities, leading people here and there (Moses) and painting ceilings (Michelangelo), with little time left for idle bussing. But I’ve certainly lipped enough ladies while making my living to qualify as a professional osculator. God knows I’ve been at it long enough. . . .

“You’re right to suggest that Dick Burton and Mario Lanza were on the cutting edge of kissing in 1950. . . .” (Here Heston refers to anecdotes I quoted from Danny Biederman’s “Book of Kisses,” in which Olivia De Havilland and Kathryn Grayson complained that Burton and Lanza, respectively, had grossly intruded their tongues during kissing scenes.) “The firm-lipped convention loosened considerably over the next generation. Indeed.

“Understand, though, whatever the prevailing conventions, kissing for the camera was never the unalloyed exotic delight people imagine.

“However attractive the lady, the kisser’s technical responsibilities are paramount. ‘Chuck, on that take your ear covered her just as you turned. And keep out of her eye light.’ I tell you, it’s not easy. Easier than defending Khartoum, maybe, but not easy .”

Of course we all remember that Charlton Heston, as Charles George (Chinese) Gordon, was killed defending Khartoum against the Sudanese rebels. Bad show.

“As a social historian, however,” he goes on, “you must recognize that movie kissing has come full circle. AIDS has proved a firmer censor ever than old Will Hays was. Courtesy, if not prudence, now denies the intrusive tongue. There was an uneasy period last summer when kissers/kissees nervously firmed lips on camera, uncertain of who might be afraid of what and from whom. In November, the Screen Actors Guild passed a ruling that allowed any member the right to ‘refuse to engage in open-mouthed kissing scenes.’ We’re back to 1940, Jack. Who would have thought it?”

I have heard Heston tell the story of his encounter with Katharine Cornell when he was playing Anthony to her Cleopatra in “Anthony and Cleopatra” on the New York stage.

He was a mere youth, enchanted by the great star, and when, after two or three performances, she summoned him to her dressing room, he was euphoric in anticipation of the intimate favors he imagined she was about to bestow on him.

Alas, when he was finally alone in her presence, she faced him coldly and said, “Young man, could you do something about your sword? When you bend over to kiss me it bangs me on the knee.”

So, indeed, as Heston says, kissing one’s leading lady, lovely though she may be, is not always “the unalloyed, erotic delight that people imagine.”