pardesi

pardesi | 13 | February 26, 2009 at 8:36 pm | 211 views | NaachGaana Bol| Share

He looks into her eyes and says “Here’s looking at you kid” and then walks away.  No sizzling sex scenes, no drenched in the rain romance, but on-screen chemistry?  Hell yes!  That was the one and only Humphrey Bogart bidding goodbye to Ingrid Bergman.  Off screen they barely spoke to each other and yet on screen they made one of the most romantic couples ever.  Bogie was twice married once divorced what Casablanca was being made; his marriage at the time was working.  But then came Lauren Bacall, 25 years his junior and the couple sizzled both on-screen in films like To have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and off-screen.  A third marriage for Bogie was the result!  The repartee between Bogie and Bacall and the crackling sense of made for each other is hard to forget.  One can also remember fondly the real slow burning chemistry between Bogie and Katherine Hepburn in African Queen as the boated down a river in Belgian Congo.

Spencer Tracy was married to Katherine Hepburn in every which way but for real.  Was this edge of not really being a legally married couple what kept their on-screen romances so real?  Tracy and Hepburn burnt up the screen with their pull and tug interactions on screen, like a fencing bout then sparred and parried and yet we never doubted for a minute that they belonged together in the somewhat misogynist Adam’s Rib and Pat & Mike!  Tracy’s macho male was well matched with Hepburn’s smart mouthed female who didn’t give an inch.

Another couple with a long run at romantic on screen pairings were that ‘on and off with marriage’ couple Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  Elizabeth Taylor was a siren no doubt, the “star” of National Velvet was meant to break men’s hearts.  How else can one explain 8 marriages, twice to the same man?  They burnt up the screen in Cleopatra and Taming of the Shrew.  But their best was in an edgy sort of attraction-repulsion that nothing did better on screen.  In The Comedians the illicit chemistry was between a couple watching a country unravel, while in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf the couple played out a rather public unraveling of a marriage.  One could not help wonder if reel life was paralleling reel life in the case of this most famous couple of cinema.

Also ran a really good run in one or two films the following:
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet had the ultimate doomed romance aboard a ship with a name that took the mystery out of the outcome.  Richard Gere befriended and then eventually fell in love with and “rescued” the hooker Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.  But my favorite contender for the fourth place in romantic on-screen couple has to be Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle.  The atmosphere in the film is infused with a sense of inevitable romance; the chemistry exists even without the couple being seen together for the longest time!

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There Are 13 Responses So Far. »

1. 

   SK 11 July 2008
   08:45:14 pm

   

   great post neelu.

   Julie Delpy and Ethan hawke in before sunrise make one great pair too.
2. 

   neelu 11 July 2008
   08:50:13 pm

   

   rks – if you are reading, I so wish there was an edit button so I could go back and fix my typos!

   Thanks SK. Yes Delpy and Hawke too. And I love Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver in The Year of Living Dangerously.
3. 

   SK 11 July 2008
   09:01:37 pm

   

   it cant get any better than helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson in As good as it gets however eccentric their characters are.
4. 

   Som 11 July 2008
   09:18:33 pm

   

   My picks:

   Gregory Peck-Audrey Hepburn:Roman Holiday
   Jack Nicholson-Helen Hunt:As Good As It Gets
   Johnny Depp-Kate Winslet: Finding Neverland
5. 

   neelu 11 July 2008
   10:01:12 pm

   

   Jack and Helen Hunt was a strange one for me, it started out kind of icky and took a long time to get to the usual comfort level.

   What about Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in that TV show Moonlighting? They kind of sizzled on screen.
6. 

   jayshah 11 July 2008
   10:35:34 pm

   

   Of recent times

   Roberts-Gere
   Roberts-Grant
   Hanks-Ryan (yes agree, a very good one and a contrast too)
7. 

   jayshah 11 July 2008
   10:49:13 pm

   

   btw a very nice post…what will part 2 be about?
8. 

   neelu 11 July 2008
   10:59:40 pm

   

   Thanks. Well, part 2 will be desi chemistry.
9. 

   jayshah 12 July 2008
   02:08:11 am

   

   Also Crystal-Ryan too…
10. 

    rks 13 July 2008
    02:37:15 am

    

    Pierce Brosnan – Rene Russo : Thomas crown Affair
    George Clooney – Jennifer Lopez: Out of sight
    George Clooney – Michelle Pfeiffer : One Fine Day
11. 

    Kunal27 13 July 2008
    11:17:38 pm

    

    Great post indeed. Such original and thoughtful matter can’t be lauded enough.

    Also what you think about Tom Cruise – Nicole Kidman on and off screen sizzle???

    They did 3 at least 3 movies from the top of my head, Far and Away, Days of Thunder, and Eyes Wide Shut.

    I guess they did pretty well.
12. 

    Kunal27 13 July 2008
    11:18:21 pm

    

    Oh my effin gawd… how can I forget.. Top Gun.
13. 

    neelu 13 July 2008
    11:32:03 pm

    

    I never thought much of Cruise as a romancer, really. I think romance as a genre might have degenerated into the high school romcoms, and there are no grand romances in HW anymore. There are a few isolated films like Out of Africa, English Patient, Constant Gardener but no real established duo that one identifies with romance on screen. I think the last might have been Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in Jewel of the Nile and Romancing the Stone, other than the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan pair I mentioned (with the divine Sleepless in Seattle and the somewhat ho-hum You Got Mail).

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