Random thought about romance

I was watching a delightful, but surprisingly little known. WWII movie called The More the Merrier, which puts a romantic spin on the housing shortage that plagued Washington, D.C., during the war.  In it, a young woman (Jean Arthur) who has her own apartment, decides to act patriotically and let a room in her apartment.  Before she knows it, she has a meddlesome old man (Charles Coburn) and a handsome young soldier (Joel McCrea) living with her, and the fun begins.

About three quarters of the way through the movie, when she and McCrea have clearly fallen for each other, he gently tries to kiss her.  She equally gently pushes him away, conversing nervously.  In the work place, it would be sexual harassment.  In the context of a romance movie about two people obviously in love, it’s incredibly sexy.

Watching this scene — a scene having the prelude to sex, without the actual sex part — I was struck, as I always am when watching old movies, by the fact that focus on the tentative physical beginnings of romance is very sexy.  And I was reminded, yet again, that the graphic sex scenes in modern movies, rather than being sexy, are so often merely clinical or, worse, embarrassing.