The Most Beautiful Screen Couples.

I was thinking the other day how much beauty is demanded from current celebrities yet few are able to deliver it in a sense of wholeness (you know being actually beautiful as opposed to engineered to fit societal standards).
What we mostly get now is an army of fembots and pumped Adonises who all sorta look the same and fail to take our breath away in the manner that a look at Audrey Hepburn's waifish facial features did or in the manner with which William Holden's non-six pack made our jaw drop to the floor.
It's true that standards have certainly been altered throughout the years but when it comes to beauty I'm the kind of man who is faithful to the classics.
Therefore when people exclaim how Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the most beautiful couple in recent movies all I see is a good looking man and a voluptuously vulgar woman trying to trick us
into believing they're worthy of being paired with these people:


10. Ali McGraw & Ryan O'Neal in Love Story.

Say what you will about the movie's quality (I think it's terribly corny and just plain dull) but Ryan and Ali are a match made in heaven.
I once heard someone say that the film's tragic finale was karma for the couple's beauty. Sometimes you can't have it all, can you?


9. Gwyneth Paltrow & Ethan Hawke in Great Expectations.

Compiling this list and trying to concentrate mostly on legendary movie stars I really couldn't get these two out of my head.
Paltrow for one, has all the cruel beauty Jean Simmons had in David Lean's version, but her counterpart in that one didn't have the boyish good looks and effortless handsomeness of Hawke who in this movie can't help but surrender under Gwyn's spell.
Can you blame him?


8. Grace Kelly & Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief.

Hitch really knew how to pair them up and by putting together a decadently handsome Grant with soon to be princess Kelly, he created one of those rare couples that are as beautiful as they are electric.
Watch them together in any scene of this movie and you will see the sexual tension trespass into orgasmic realms.
It's not for nothing that legend has it that Grace had one last plebeian fling and surrendered to Cary's charms before leaving for Monaco.


7. Faye Dunaway & Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde.

Beauty isn't a crime.


6. Robert Redord & Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Poor Katharine Ross really stood no chance when she was paired with two of the most beautiful men that ever lived.
In this exciting revisionist Western, Paul and Bob play the legendary outlaws with a knack for stealing, riding bikes and jumping off cliffs.
Watch how they compliment each other in ways beyond mere sidekick-ism. The kind of chemistry they achieve is magical.


5. Ingrid Bergman & Cary Grant in Notorious.

Hitch does it again, in this sexy, dark spy thriller he pairs Bergman's warm beauty with Grant's caddish good looks. What results isn't a breathtaking match but also one of the most ingenious screen pairings of all time.
Watching these two make either love or war is surrendering to forces beyond our control.


4. Natalie Wood & James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.

Natalie and James fire up the screen with all their angst, helplessness and hormones. The coming of age classic is legendary for the way in which adolescents became lead characters up and front but it's also memorable for creating two sexual icons who proved even pretty people have problems (inventing the whole WB and CW concepts fifty years before they did).
Oh and just because the piece is about couples and not groups, we must exclude Sal Mineo from this entry.


3. Elizabeth Taylor & Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun.

Poor Shelley Winters and all but you have to confess you too wanted Monty and Liz to end up together in this one...


2. Audrey Hepbrun & William Holden in Sabrina.

We all know who Sabrina chooses but can you really blame the ingenue for wanting William Holden so badly?


1. Natalie Wood & Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass.

The first time I watched this movie I had no doubt anyone would lose their mind over being dumped by Warren Beatty but not only is this movie heartbreaking for the way in which Wood surrenders to playing poor Deanie Loomis (who knew she had that depth?) but also because it provided audiences everywhere with a first look at how cruel the 60's would become in cinematic terms.
If not even Warren and Natalie could have a happy ending what was there for the rest of the world in such a chaotic decade?


So what do you think? Any other screen couple that makes you drool and feel all fuzzy and lustful?