Embracing revelations in kissing documentary

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 20

Embracing revelations in kissing documentary

A peck on the neck or a slobbery smacker? Saturday’s documentary, “The Kiss,” (8 p.m. on One) embraces all. It will tell you everything you, did not realise you wanted to know about kissing.

From the first screen kiss and the actor’s kiss ing school in Britain, to the lipstick-testing kissing machine and the speedkissing champions — it guarantees some cheeky confessions. It also reveals what happens to your body when you kiss, how to catch a criminal through

his “kiss prints,” and why we want to kiss each other anyway. Social kisses, political kisses, loving kisses, one thing is clear — a kiss is never “just a kiss.”

“A kiss can mean anything from betrayal to love, tenderness, politics and power,” says producer Robyn Wallis, “although nobody can ever really define it and solve all its mysteries. “Kissing has been around for thousands of years and everyone can remember their first kiss.” Her own was under

a bed at the age of eight with the boy next door.

“First kisses are often done in secret,” she says. And there is evidence aplenty in this documentary to prove the theory. Narrated by Hollywood leading man George Segal, “The Kiss” shows how we have moved on during the last 50 years to greater acceptance of kissing in public (albeit with a degree of tut-tutt-ing envy). Before then, public “spooning” provoked such outrage that policemen felt obliged to arrest offending couples.