Great Kisses: ...and Famous Lines Right Out of the Movies

This is a the type of fun pithy book that makes you realize most tomes on cinema take themselves way too sriously. Fun gift, and perfect romatic reminder for the cinema-phile. Would have loved a bit more "diversity kisses" but oh well, this romp is meant more for light hearted quizing than for encyclopedia musings.

This is the type of trivial albeit graphically pleasing small-coffee-table book that you would find in someone's guest bathroom next to their bowl of potpourri sachet. Film historian and Reel.com DVD critic Timothy Knight has compiled fifty photos, each from a well-known film featuring a classic clench and screen smooch. With each photo, he gives a brief synopsis of the context for the highlighted scene followed by the verbatim dialogue that precedes the magical moment of romantic combustion. Winnowing the book down to fifty lip-locks was not an easy task since Knight takes pains to say they each need to embody a certain "romantic serendipity" to be included. I think his aspiration may have been to present a printed version of the type of swoon-worthy montage presented at the end of Cinema Paradiso. Some choices are inevitable, iconic and inarguable - Ilsa and Rick always having Paris in Casablanca, Rhett taming Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, the wave-crashing orgasma of From Here to Eternity, the rain-soaked ending of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Some have not gained the same stature but are worthy additions, such as the front porch finale in Alice Adams and the forbidden love in All That Heaven Allows. Some are surprising to find here, such as the unexpected moments of sensitivity in The Quiet Man and Rocky. Others are a bit head-scratching for my taste, while others seem sadly missing like the classic departing train that threatens to separate the lovers in Love in the Afternoon. But it's all in good fun, and Knight displays a cinemaphile's knack for identifying the defining smooches in our collective consciousness.

This is about the cutest little thing I've ever seen. Smooches from the classic films to today's blockbusters. Great gift.