Introduction:

Cinema Paradiso (1988, It./Fr.) - awarded the Best Foreign Language Film by the Academy, contained the euphoric, nostalgic scene of middle-aged, silver-haired, world-famous Italian film director Salvatore Di Vita (Jacques Perrin as adult) returning to his peasant childhood, small-town Sicilian home of Giancaldo. He came back after 30 years to attend the funeral of his mentor/projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), whom he succeeded as the town's movie theatre projectionist after a devastating fire blinded him.

He revisited the condemned Cinema Paradiso theatre in the town square when it was destroyed to make way for a city parking lot. He was given a gift of a reel of film by Alfredo's widow. When he returned to Rome, he screened the reel, watching the long montage of romantic ("pornographic") amorous screen kisses ordered spliced, excised, and censored out of numerous films (i.e., His Girl Friday, The Gold Rush, The Outlaw, The Son of the Sheik, The Adventures of Robin Hood, etc.) by the village priest Father Adelfio (Leopoldo Trieste) when he was a boy.

He remembered, while peeking through a curtain in the theater, that Father Adelfio would ring a bell every time there was an image or scene that needed to be be censored and deleted - this time, he was watching and judging Verso La Vita (1936, Fr.). In the film, during one of the double feature screenings for the public, the audience members objected when there was an obvious splice (of a kissing scene) in La Terra Trema (1948, It.), and they voiced their disapproval. One patron commented: "In 20 years, I've never seen a kiss on the screen."

Compilation of Images in Montage:

The following compilation presents (in order below) and identifies, as fully as possible, the films in the romantic kissing montage -- 47 segments, of which 41 were kissing scenes, and a few other snipped shots (of single individuals).

Note: Director Giuseppe Tornatore's script described the scene thusly:

"In rapid sequence the passionate kisses between actors and actresses, names famous and names unknown in the history of movies. Greta Garbo, Gary Cooper, Alida Valli, Rudolph Valentino, Ingrid Bergman, Clark Gable, Anna Magnani, Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, Amedeo Nazzari, Luisa Ferida, Vittorio De Sica, Rita Hayworth, Tyrone Power, Doris Durante, Massimo Girotti, Marta Abba, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Assia Noris..."

(P.S. Not all of these performers were included in the montage, or were clearly recognizable in the almost 50 snippets of film.)