Love without Kissing

A film about Hollywood
Reg’d © Library of Congress

When aspiring actress Dolores Davenport's face is destroyed in an accident, there's nothing the doctors can do. Plastic surgery has its limits. A face transplant would take years, and cost more than she can come up with.  Proposed cast: Fiona Georgiadi

So she goes veiled, and earns her keep by posing for lesbian painter Virgy, who's in love with her.  

Proposed cast: MariaCristina Heller

Dolores doesn't return Virgy's love, only her friendship, and while she poses, she works on a screenplay. If she can't make it as a star, she'll make it as a writer. But how can she sell a script when she can’t even show her face?

At an exhibition of Virgy's paintings, Dolores meets French movie star Louis Bertrand, who's been collecting Virgy's pictures of Dolores, and, already in love with those—

—falls in love with her.

Proposed cast: Jean Reno

Here is someone who can open doors for her, and he does, but his passion, his obsession, is to see behind her veil. That, she tells him, he will never do. She won't even sleep with him. But he doesn't give up. He arranges an interview for her with cold ruthless studio producer Perry Zabrowski.  

Proposed cast: Tom Malloy

She pitches Perry an idea based on his private life, which Louis has filled her in on, and Perry buys it, and wants to shape it, but only if they attach a star—Louis.  

Impossible. But when she pitches it to Louis he agrees! "You’re going to make this movie?" "Of course I am! And do you know why? Because if you do not sleep with me this instant I won’t do it! Et voila!" She refuses. He shrugs. She relents, but he must never touch her veil. If he does that, they're through. It's love without kissing.

She is now a writer-producer. But Perry won't proceed unless his wife Suzanne has a role. Suzanne is not a star, and Louis says no: his reputation won't stand it, and besides, Suzanne is one of his many ex-lovers, perhaps the most delicious of them. He doesn't want to go there again.

The deal is off, and Dolores spurns Louis until his passion gets the better of him and he relents. But neurotic Suzanne can't work with the director Perry assigns; she'll only work with Dolores. So Dolores directs.

They're shooting on a yacht in Marina del Rey, and Perry comes aboard to check on his wife, and to have Dolores. The five of them spend the night there—Virgy is co-writer—and Dolores wakes up in a red bed: Perry's throat has been cut. It matters very much to her who did this, but her friends aren't talking, in fact no one seems to mind, and it's the last day of the schedule so they should really get these shots before the police come in and delay them interminably, shouldn't they?

Because of a gap in the cast Dolores takes the role of a pirate pleading for her life, and at the moment of truth rips off her mask—she won't show her face to Louis, but she'll show it to the world if her film needs it. Not being a stunt man, Louis blows up the wrong boat, and Perry's corpse along with it, so the murderer is off the hook. Oscars. Louis takes Dolores back to France, but she still won't show him her face.

Pretentious Pictures presents a serious comedy.

Reg’d © Library of Congress