BrainPickings recently highlighted the first kiss in cinema history. That takes you back to 1896, to a film brought to you by Thomas Edison. Now we rewind the videotape and present the first same-sex kiss in film history (or at least one of the earliest known ones). This Brokeback-before-Brokeback moment took place in the 1927 film Wings – the first and only silent film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen star in the film, playing two combat pilots who vie for the affection of the same woman (Clara Bow). That’s the storyline. But neither, as writer Kevin Sessums writes, “shows as much love for her … as they do for each other.”
Find more classics in our collection of 450 Free Movies Online.
via Andrew Sullivan
I don’t know that I would classify it as boy on boy kissing. Buddy Rogers only caught a corner of Richard Arlen’s lips, but my goodness, they are passionate about being friends aren’t they?
I was surprised at how natural it felt. Of course the scene is somewhat homoerotic, but it was heartwarming as well.