Following Olly’s suggestion in AMT314 that Wings contains the first offical gay kiss in mainstream cinema, Anna says:
I have two other suggestions for the first gay kiss in cinema.
The first is Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930). Dietrich’s character, Amy Jolly, is a nightclub singer who does one of her songs in a very fetching tuxedo and kisses one of the women in the audience. Obviously, this isn’t a full-on snog in the context of a gay relationship, but it’s definitely sexual rather than friendly.
The second is from Madchen in Uniform (1931). Again, it’s not a full-on snog in the context of a gay relationship, but its lip-to-lip and there is lesbian feeling between the two characters that kiss (revealed in another scene in the film). Madchen in Uniform was the first film to show lesbians in a positive light – yay for the Weimar Republic! Obviously, with the unfortunate turn that German history took soon after 1931, it was banned in Germany a few years after its release. Nearly banned in America too, but Eleanor Roosevelt saved the day by giving the film her endorsement.
Have you ever nicked a little something to remind you of a holiday? We’ve got a nice china cup pinched from a plane and YOU’LL NEVER TAKE US ALIVE, BRITISH AIRWAYS. What’s yours? One listener’s stolen souvenir came with fond memories and twenty years of guilt. Find out what and why in Answer Me This! Episode 314:
Today we tackle:
tinfoil hats
dumping your training-buddy
same-sex kisses
concierges Kendal Mint Cake vs transubstantiation royal tins of travel sweets vs the unstoppable march of time
stealing from castles vs pissing in a stream
the silent film Wings
a Milton Keynes-themed bar
heritage crime The Grand Budapest Hotel IRL
mummy and daddy
1995
and
giraffe heads.
Plus: though Olly prefers men to machines, he would prefer men to act like machines; Helen wouldn’t tune into a livestream of Princess Middleton giving birth; and Martin the Sound Man doesn’t have high hopes for his fellow academics on the ski slopes, unless the hopes are for a mild sprain rather than a broken arm.
As an addendum to the question about same sex kisses in films, today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices) concerns the lost lesbians of Love Actually. Yes, they actually left material OUT of that sprawling collage of human emotions.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘ANSWER‘. Generous!
We’ll return on 28th May 2015 with AMT315, prepare your tinfoil headphones.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT314 Child-Friendly Rating: 85%. Content clean. Swearing inventory: 2x ‘fuck’, 1x ‘shit’. 5% is deducted for each. •••
Martin the Sound Man sports a tinfoil hat at AMT100
