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Just to get "Gay Men In Silents" back on track, I will start a new Post with a remark by kinopanorama (I hope it is acceptable to graph an old Post into a new one):

"The first film in which I saw a man kiss another man was Wings. The two characters in the film were not gay, but they had obviously developed a deep fondness for each other."

Now THAT made me think back about how many times I've seen men kissing each other in silent film. The first example was "Wings". But my personal favorite scene was when Rudolph Valentino cradled a dying matador in his arms and kissed him in "Blood And Sand."

And did John Gilbert smooch another guy in "The Big Parade", when the soldier died on the battlefield? Come to think about it, these examples are mainly when one of the guys is dying. That ought to bring up another connotation. You may kiss, but only if you are sure the other guy is dead!

Granted, this does not imply that any of these men were playing gay characters, but I do have a fertile imagination.

Danny

Perhaps too fertile: imputing the ethos of the present to the past is an anachronism that distorts the meaning of the incidents cited; another one is the Griffith picture (Hearts of the World...?) in which a white doughboy kisses his dying black comrade.

On Russia there are still the kiss from men to men. Becarefull if you plan to visite there...

In USA films sometimes a motherr kiss his son in mouth, and in some marriage party a guest kiss the bride as a "good luck" gesture. But in my country such things would be very weird.
Also in USA, many mother take bath together with their babies.

In some nordic countries some families get sauna naked together.

The closest to an outright love scene is at the end of A Girl in Every Port, and you'll never convince me that Hawks wasn't having a laugh by staging it just like a standard Hollywood love scene. They don't kiss, but you sure think they're going to.

Perhaps the reason why there was more friendship-oriented men kissing
men was that the threat of being seen as gay was so absent at that time.
I think it's revisionist to see such things as harbingers of any kind of
gay quality. Men showing other men physical affection seems to be more prevalent
in cultures that don't tolerate open homosexuality in their country. I had
a gay acquaintance from India tell me about five years ago that homosexuality
was outlawed in India. One often sees Arab men embracing each other, and I'm
pretty sure homosexuality is outlawed in most Arab countries.

The Bible says greet each other with a holy kiss, and doesn't specify man
or woman. Men kissing men I think was also commonplace in Italian culture.

telical wrote:Perhaps the reason why there was more friendship-oriented men kissing
men was that the threat of being seen as gay was so absent at that time.
I think it's revisionist to see such things as harbingers of any kind of
gay quality.

You hit the nail on the head--squarely. A recent biography of Lincoln suggested that the living arrangement he shared with a friend was suggestive of "relations," at a time when men sharing beds with complete strangers in country inns was the rule & not the exception. Likewise, merely because they shared a beachhouse, Randy Scott & Cary Grant have been made the objects of lascivious speculation. Ridiculous.

People were more affectionate back in those days, and that's all it ways, affection between close friends. Many Middle Eastern and Eastern European countries have men that kiss each other in friendly affection, not because of sexual attraction. We cannot put our customs back into those customs, we have to look through their eyes. Laurel and Hardy shared the same bed, but it wasn't because they were a romantic couple, but because it saved money.

This subject was the big joke on this week's Modern Family as Claire (Julie Bowen) was uncomfortable because Phil's business client kept kissing her on the lips. Just when she's got Phil all jealous about it, she discovers that Kinnear kisses everybody that way, his kids and even his cleaning lady.