Kiss

Kiss

Synopsis

Some Warhol scholars date the Kiss films from November/December 1963. However, Warhol probably started shooting them much earlier – around August 1963 and continued to shoot them through the end of 1964, if not beyond. According to Warhol in Popism, they were still doing Kiss movies in the summer of 1964 when Gerard Malanga and Mark Lancaster did one – in August 1964. According to Bob Colacello, the idea for Kiss – close-ups of couples kissing each other for three minutes each – came from the old Hayes Office regulation forbidding actors in movies from touching lips for more than three seconds. Warhol also produced a silkscreen called The Kiss, based on a film still from the Hollywood horror classic Dracula (1931) of Bela Lugosi biting the neck of his co-star, Helen Chandler. The silkscreen was done on November 22, 1963. Amy Taubin, who would later become the film critic for the Village Voice, first saw some of the Kiss films in 1963 at the Grammercy Arts Theatre on West 27th Street. At this time the Kiss series of films was called The Andy Warhol Serial "because it was shown in weekly four minute installments."