Any list of the best kisses on film (Say it with a kiss! The 20 greatest smooches on film – ranked!, 8 February) must surely include the two smouldering, literally and metaphorically, ones planted by Slim (Lauren Bacall) on the smoke-filled mouth of Steve (Humphrey Bogart) in To Have and Have Not (1944), in the days when cigarette smoking on screen was the norm.
It’s even more memorable for Bacall delivering, moments later, one of the most famous lines in film history: “You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow.”
Adrian Brodkin
London
• Surely George Emerson’s kiss with Lucy Honeychurch in A Room With a View should be included.
Liz Byrne
Letchworth, Hertfordshire
• Best kisses on screen? No contest: just watch Cinema Paradiso, where Alfredo, the projectionist, is forced to physically cut every kiss out of the films he shows. The final scene, when Totò, his young assistant and now a celebrated film director, watches the sequence of spliced kisses, will move you to tears.
Ian Ferguson
Thornton Dale, North Yorkshire
• I was surprised to see only one French kiss in your list. No 1 should be from Les Enfants du Paradis, between Baptiste and Garance. After Baptiste declares his love and kisses Garance, she explains that love is so simple, then hops into bed with Frédérick, setting the scene for the enthralling tragedy that ensues.
Paul Johns
Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire
