How “Long” is a Kiss? “Long” Meant, Not “Why.”
How long is a kiss? No, not “why?”—nobody so foolish as to ask that—but “how long?”
“As long as you can hold your breath,” somebody has said, but the question which moving-picture censors and actors and actresses are debating now is, how much film a kiss may, with propriety, fill.
“Three feet is the limit,” said a recent ruling of the Chicago board of censors.
“That’s too much,” said Miss Ruth Stonehouse, one of the favorites of the “movie fans.” “No kiss has a right to more than one foot of film.
“You see, when an actress is kissed on the stage, it isn’t because she wants to be kissed, but because the artistry of the play demands it, to indicate emotion on the part of the stage characters. It is utterly impersonal, you know.”
“It is?” ventured the interviewer.
“Why, of course. It isn’t really the actress who is being kissed, but the character she represents. Sometimes an unskilled actress uses the prolonged kiss to convey her idea of a love scene, but if she understands the art of expression, it is unnecessary.”
“But would you limit the real, honest-to-goodness love kiss to one foot?” asked the “cub” reporter anxiously.
“We were talking of the stage,” she replied gracefully. “The kind you mean, my dear boy, are a quite different affair.”