Top Ten: Best Ingrid Bergman Kisses
Sunday, August 16, 2015 at 3:00PM Our Ingrid Bergman Centennial continues with David dreaming about her most romantic moments...
Like all stars of Classic Hollywood, Ingrid Bergman was paired with numerous leading men, and romance was an integral part of practically every film she starred in. And when I think of Ingrid Bergman, I think of - well, I think of #1 on this list. But we'll get to that. Here, in entirely subjective order, are Ingrid Bergman's best on-screen kisses. Start swooning.
Much kissing - oh, so much - after the jump. And, for those with bad internet connections, a whole lot of gifs - you have been warned.)
10. Edvin Adolphson, Munkbrogreven (1935)
Ingrid Bergman's very first film credit, Munkbrogreven also seems to be the beginning of Ingrid Bergman's on-screen romantic life, with this quick, chaste kiss at her window - albeit with a jewel thief. The signature of her kisses - the man's hands pawing at her head - is present right from the off. As we'll get to, men pull Ingrid toward them, though here, things all seem very innocent.
09. Robert Montgomery, Rage in Heaven (1941)
This list isn't going in chronological order, though it may as well be, as I've omitted both of Bergman's Intermezzo roles from this list, since they just weren't sexy enough. Not her fault - blame Leslie Howard. Here we have someone far more dashing, in somewhat overlooked leading man Robert Montgomery, playing a husband to whom Bergman's Stella is increasingly afraid of. So not really romantic, then, but Bergman's face holds as much lust as it does fear, the two mingling to dangerous effect.
08. Anthony Perkins, Goodbye Again (1961)
Yes, the male half of this frantic kiss is Norman Bates himself, playing a much more innocent young man in a film from the same year as Psycho. The film seems to position Bergman as an older woman still very much in charge of her sexuality, and immensely desirable - something that lasted unusually late into her career, for a Hollywood actress. The film's trailer is an absolute hoot, by the way.
07. Gary Cooper, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
As Andrew discussed, Bergman doesn't have much to do in this Hemingway drama other than be passively devoted to Gary Cooper's republican rebel, and we see that in this embrace, perhaps the most forceful kiss on the list. Where other men pull Ingrid to them, Cooper practically devours her. It's Gary Cooper, so it's almost alright.
06. Cary Grant, Indiscreet (1958)
Grant and Bergman's reunion saw them in just as romantic a mood, with some very late 1950s suggestive split-screen and some very sensual kisses, the most enthralling being this one - again featuring the man's hand controlling Ingrid's face, though she is here entirely submissive to his embrace and entirely comfortable with it.
05. Gregory Peck, Spellbound (1945)
Fading in from a dream sequence, this hazy kiss is in the gauzy texture of the film itself, a romantically bewildering psychological drama from good old Alfred Hitchcock, in the first of his three collaborations with Bergman.
04. Anthony Quinn, A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)
The latest film on this countdown, but you can see from the quivering, tortured look of Bergman in the image that even in her 50s, she was still very much a vibrantly sexual being on-screen - a persona perhaps forged by the Rossellini scandal (indeed, this film has Bergman playing a woman entering a extra-marital affair), but still unusual at a time when her contemporaries had long been consigned to the likes of ghoulish horror films. Here, she seems more alive than ever.
03. Curd Jürgens, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
Another tortured love, albeit more subdued and respectable. This is Dutch-Chinese (yes, really) Captain Lin Nan's goodbye to his English love Gladys Aylward, in a romantic plot entirely invented for the epic adaptation of Aylward's virtuous life to the screen. That doesn't make this kiss any less sweepiingly dramatic.
02. Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca (1942)
More words have been written on Casablanca than I care to imagine, but Rick and Ilsa's love affair is one of Hollywood's best remembered romances, and almost certainly Bergman's most popular film. There's a good reason, and one of them is this moment: filmed in beautiful monochromatic shadow, Bergman and Bogart come together in torrid passion, wrapping themselves up in one another for the brief time that they have.
01. Cary Grant, Notorious (1946)
even more Notorious kisses if you need them...
Of course. This is why this list exists, this is what I think of when I think of Ingrid Bergman, and this is, for my money, the most romantic kissing scene in cinematic history. Two people utterly wrapped up in one another, submerged in adoration and completely uninterested in separating. Proof that Hitchcock's masterful skills were just as beautifully applied to romance as to suspense, using a similar approach to vividly different ends. Best of all is how happy Ingrid looks - in a career that saw a great deal of romantic suffering (which Notorious has a great deal of), seeing that luminous smile surround a kiss with her finest leading man is one of cinema's greatest pleasures.
Reader Comments (14)
Nice choices although I would have flipped your first and second.
I'm glad to see some of her obscure films cited. She's really wonderful in Goodbye Again though her devotion to that block of wood Yves Montand, in this a selfish callous lout is confounding. More scattershot is A Walk in the Spring Rain, it has beautiful scenery and its great to see a complicated love story being played by grown ups but the script is a bit of a mess. Ingrid is excellent though as a woman rediscovering her inner self and blossoming under the knowledge.
Notorious is the most romantic movie ever made, and that kiss is the greatest kiss ever filmed.
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is one of my favorite Bergman movies.
The "Notorious" kiss is the one for the ages.
"Notorious" has perhaps the best movie ending ever, at least in my book. The kiss is pretty good, too.
I like the kiss in the cellar (in Notorious) best; "Oh Dev Dev")
When I clicked on the link I was, like, "Notorious" better be at number 1 and it was! I approve wholeheartedly. I love the way Ingrid plays with his ear and whips her hair back during the telephone conversation. So sensual and romantic. Ingrid has never looked more ravishing. Amazing film.
Ugh, Anthony Quinn. Poor Ingrid.
I would NEVER get how on earth someone who looks like Humphrey Bogart is a big movie star?
total swoon forever for Gregory Peck though.
Though I do wish her career featured roughly 25% less swooning, I've only now stopped to realise that not only was she peerless at selling romance but possibly the actress most reliable at conjuring that romantic chemistry with absolutely every co-star.
Ingrid could kiss! What a great post!
I recall Bea Arthur in Lovers and Other Strangers, saying to befuddled daughter-in-law Diane Keaton, in her film debut: "Love isn't physical, love is spiritual. Like the great love that Bing Crosby had for Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary's."
Alas, no kiss there. Maybe from the Holy Spirit.
So happy to see her kiss with Gary Cooper from For Whom the Bell Tolls make the list. "Where do the noses go?"
I totally agree with all the comments on "Notorious" one of Hitchcok's true masterpieces
Notorious is the only choice for #1... and i have stared at this post for so long i fear somethign is wrong with me.