Valentine's Day: Love is in the Air

We hope you have a warm & fuzzy Valentine's Day this February 14th. But if you don't (and I don't believe I ever have!), maybe you can live vicariously through the folks depicted today who are doing a decent job of demonstrating love, desire and/or ecstasy during their work on a movie. In a couple of cases, the participants were exactly acing! (This is by no means an inclusive collection of screen lovers, just performers whose publicity photos caught my eye enough to share today.) Our cover lovers are Rudolph Valentino and Bebe Daniels from the 1924 silent film Monsieur Beaucaire.

The immortal Great Garbo with John Gilbert in Love (1927.) These two lived together for a time and were once engaged, though Garbo couldn't allow herself to become someone's wife (i.e. - not in charge of her own life.) And as an alleged bisexual, she may have had other things on her mind...

I LOVED this portrait of Walter Huston and "wavishing" Kay Francis in The Virtuous Sin (1930.)

Gary Cooper and seductive Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930.)

Herbert Marshall gets his turn with Kay Francis in Trouble in Paradise (1932)

A potent movie star coupling of the '30s & '40s on screen (and off) were Clark Gable and Joan Crawford.

This shot is more demonstrative than the previous one.

Surely Gable's greatest love, however, was his wife Carole Lombard, who was tragically killed during a war bond selling tour in 1942. They made this film, No Man of Her Own, in 1932 prior to their eventual relationship and marriage.

Romeo and Juliet (1936) was an opulent telling of the Shakespeare classic, though modern audiences find it rough going to find the doomed teenagers of the story played by the very adult Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer.

Howard was an alarming forty-three while Shearer was thirty-four! Shearer, nonetheless, remains the only on-screen Juliet to ever receive an Oscar nomination for her performance.

We'll forgive Miss Bette Davis for not looking costar George Brent in the eye during this pose for Dark Victory (1939) since, by now, the character is blind!

Another strong romantic pairing of the 1930s & '40s was Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn, seen here in Dodge City (1939.) I love Errol's eyes in this one.

Harboring a reportedly unconsummated desire for one another helped this twosome create considerable chemistry on-screen. This movie, They Died with Their Boots On (1941), was their final pairing.

De Havilland's sister Joan Fontaine gets in on the action with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in Gunga Din (1939.)

This sort of upside-down/horizontal pose (seen above by Garbo & Gilbert) was used many times by Hollywood photographers, in this instance featuring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck during Meet John Doe (1941.)

A very famous example of celluloid love becoming the real deal occurred on To Have and Have Not (1944) between newcomer Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.

I love this pose and Bacall's hair here. Also, if you look at this in large size, her eye makeup seems startlingly contemporary (or at least later than 1944!)

Lana Turner and John Garfield sizzle on the sand in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946.)

The Merry Widow (1952) with Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas might have been a benign movie, but sparks truly flew between its stars.  Wait for it...

Well before her own marriage to Fernando the Great, Esther Williams overheard this duo's passionate (and loud) lovemaking in the dressing room next to hers at MGM!

Here we have Alan Ladd and sultry Arlene Dahl (who was also one of Fernando Lamas' wives) in Desert Legion (1953.)

John Payne gives Coleen Gray a roll in the hay during The Vanquished (1953.)

Here's a rather rare alternate photo from the one used in advertising for Magnificent Obsession (1954) with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman.

I especially like this one, which is closer to the one used for the film in which Hudson was pressed up against Wyman's chest in a dramatic fashion.

Though she has her naysayers, I adore Shirley Jones in and out of Oklahoma! (1955) and I also consider Gordon MacRae's baritone to be one of the most beautiful movie voices I've ever enjoyed.

Two beauties, Natalie Wood and Tab Hunter, in promotion of The Girl He Left Behind (1956.)

Tab Hunter, regardless of his own sexuality, could really turn on the heat in still photos. I love the way he looks here and above.

As is sometimes (often?) the case in these instances, Wood established less combustion on screen with her real life husband Robert than with other platonic costars! This still comes from All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960) and was the only feature film they acted in together.

Houseboat (1958), which was Sophia Loren and Cary Grant's second film together, had been intended to costar his wife Betsy Drake (who'd penned the script!), but after he fell for Loren on the prior movie, the project was refashioned to fit Loren's persona. By the time the movie was lensed, their affair had already come to a halt, causing some degree of tension on the set!

I love this photo of John Kerr and France Nuyen on location for South Pacific (1958.)

Janet Leigh and John Gavin made a sultry, if brief, couple in Psycho (1960.) Her bra & slip-clad love scene pushed the staid boundaries of the time, especially since the characters were not married.

This is a gorgeous (tinted) shot of Angie Dickinson and Roger Moore from the 1961 missionary drama The Sins of Rachel Cade.

One of several arty portraits taken of Shirley Knight and Paul Newman for Sweet Bird of Youth (1962.)

This one lacks the passion of the others in this post, but I wanted to include it to show off the then-slender Knight and the always sexy Newman with his belly peeking out from under his shirt.

Wall of Noise (1963) paired Ty Hardin with Suzanne Pleshette in a story about their illicit affair at a race track. The movie was black & white, but this portrait allows us to see them in glorious color.

This pose looks more like a break in the session in which they're receiving instructions, but again I had to include it because it shows more of them stars, particularly Hardin.

This shot from The Comedians (1967) vaguely recalls one that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton did previously for The V.I.P.s (1963), though this one didn't set off as many sparks on screen or at the box office.

Needless to say, the biggest splash made by this couple occurred during Cleopatra (1963.) Though the movie lost money, it only did so because it ultimately became so spectacularly expensive that almost nothing could have caused it to turn a profit. It was the number one film at the box office that year, yet operated at a loss!

We leave you with a romantic smooch from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), which starred Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen. Again, we wish you a wonderful Valentine's Day and hope it's a lucky one, too!