MovieChat Forums > Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) Discussion > The movie's single kiss scene in the tax...

The movie's single kiss scene in the taxicab

posted 16 years ago by eddytravers
10 replies | jump to latest

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet on these boards...

At the movie's start when Joey and Dr. Prentice are sitting in the cab and they kiss, has anyone noticed that Houghton's face is hidden in the shadow? You can't tell if it's a white woman or not.

Guess Who's is a great movie and my mom's favourite but I was disappointed with this apparent move of self-censorship. This movie was produced 3 years before I was born so I don't know...if they actually showed Poitier kissing a white woman, what would have happened?

Apparently, Sammy Davis Jr and Nancy Sinatra had kissed on TV in 1967 and a year later Shatner kissed Nichelle Nichols (though it was covered by their faces at the request of NBC) so its hard to tell how taboo explicitly showing the 2 actors in GWCTD kissing would have been.

[–] PillowRock 16 years ago

The thing is, the movie is not about John and Joey's relationship. It's about other people's reactions to it (which is also hinted at in that one kiss, which is very specifically shown from the cab driver's POV, in the mirror).

And there really aren't any scenes in the rest of the movie where you would expect the two of them to be kissing, regardless of race. How many couples do you know who spent the man's first meeting with woman's parents in a clinch making out in front of them? The most privacy the couple ever have together in the rest of the movie is on the patio when they know her parents are immediately inside.

[–] Kinematico 16 years ago

Yet that kiss that you can barely see infuriated lots of people back in 1967 (and I am afraid still infuriates some racist wackos nowadays).

One thing I learnt while watching at the extra features included in the new DVD is that Katharine Houghton (Joey) received several death threats (anonymous, of course) just because that kiss in the "shadows".

Can you imagine what could have happened if Dr. John (Poitier) would have kissed "Joey" in a close-up? What about a french kiss? I don't even want to think about it.

[–] xavierPoulain 16 years ago

I did notice that, and from the modern perspective, its definitely a WTF? moment, but think about America at the time of the movie. The idea of an on screen kiss between an African-American man and a white woman was very, VERY controversial. I guess Stanley Kramer thought it wise to visually compromise those for the liberal social progressives and those still upset social regressives by shading the kiss.

[–] PillowRock 16 years ago

> I guess Stanley Kramer thought it wise to visually compromise

I disagree. I don't think that there was any compromise involved.

The point of the shot was the kiss being clearly seen by the cab driver. To clearly show that, they showed us the kiss from his point of view; that is to say, in the rear view mirror.

From that angle there is no realistic way to have them kiss and have her face clearly visible *during* the kiss. People don't kiss in the back seat of a car by both turning 90 degrees on the seat so that both faces can be seen in a nice profile in the rear view mirror. For one thing, that is not how the seat is shaped; if they did that then neither of them would be sitting comfortably on the seat.

Besides, shooting it the way that they did would *not* have appeased anyone. Anyone who was going to object to seeing the interracial kiss was still going to object to it the way that it was; it *was* still very clear in the context that it was a black man kissing a white woman.

Like I said earlier, the whole point and story of this movie is *not* John and Joanna's romance. It is all about how everybody else reacts to the fact that they are a couple. That kiss being shown from a third party's POV sets the stage in terms of what the whole movie is going to be about.

[–] xavierPoulain 16 years ago

that's a fair assessment.

[–] marielapenn 14 years ago

yeah, but didn't sidney poitier kiss elizabeth hartman in a patch of blue 2 years earlier? she's white

[–] bradford-1 14 years ago

The white gal in SLENDER THREAD was blind, she didn't know WHAT he was!
Anyway, I was nearly 12 when GUESS was released but I do remember all kinds of media controversy over the "kiss." Apparently Kramer shot at least one more explicit kiss NOT seen from the driver's p.o.v. But after previews, the studio got very nervous, so the less heated kiss was substituted.

[–] lexom-returns 14 years ago

Besides, shooting it the way that they did would *not* have appeased anyone. Anyone who was going to object to seeing the interracial kiss was still going to object to it the way that it was; it *was* still very clear in the context that it was a black man kissing a white woman.

That kiss being shown from a third party's POV sets the stage in terms of what the whole movie is going to be about.

Eh. Sadly, when it comes to movies that deal with race, you can't just think in terms of the technical, unless of course we're to buy that Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in 1967 to Hancock and The Karate Kid in 2010 all employed directors/editors who had a penchant for changing narrative points of view at that exact same moment.

This movie has an obvious audience--liberal, educated, white people--and I agree that much of the movie has to do with white people who claim to be liberal and progressive (it's San Francisco after all) having to confront their prejudices when race isn't just theoretical.

That's the point. The Draytons were decent people. They weren't "racist." But then a black man decided to marry their daughter.

However, if you think about it, the kiss and actual sexual reality of a black man and a white woman being together--that was still theoretical in the film.

[–] lexom-returns 14 years ago

I respect this movie a lot and feel it was perhaps more honest about race relations in certain ways than films/media are today.

However, you're right about the kiss scene. There's actually a 2nd time Joey and Dr. Prentice kiss. They're out on the deck with the Irish priest. Joey's about to go back inside and so she gives both her husband to be and the Irish priest a kiss...in the very same place...the cheek.

'Nuff said.

[–] gsfsu 10 years ago

I don't remember the kiss in the cab but do remember a kiss between either Flip Wilson or Sammy Davis Jr. and a white cast member on Laugh-In in 1968. After the kiss the black guy says "there go Mississippi!".