General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

It Started with a Kiss

It Started with a Kiss is a 1959 American romantic comedy directed by George Marshall, starring Glenn Ford as Air Force Sergeant Joe Fitzpatrick and Debbie Reynolds as nightclub dancer Maggie Putnam, whose honeymoon vow of a month without sex drives the plot¹. Produced by Aaron Rosenberg for Arcola Pictures and released by MGM, it is remembered chiefly for the car at its center, a Lincoln Futura concept car that was later modified into the Batmobile of the 1966 Batman television series²^•³.

Key fact	Detail
Release	New York opening 19 August 1959; general US release September 1959²
Director / producer	George Marshall; Aaron Rosenberg²
Writers	Charles Lederer (screenplay), Valentine Davies (story)²
Stars	Glenn Ford (Sgt. Joe Fitzpatrick), Debbie Reynolds (Maggie Putnam), Eva Gabor (Marquesa de la Rey), Gustavo Rojo (Antonio Soriano), Fred Clark (Gen. O'Connell)²
Runtime / format	103–104 minutes; CinemaScope, Metrocolor, Westrex sound²
Filming	Late February to late April 1959; on location in Madrid and Cádiz, Spain, plus MGM studios²^•⁴
The car	A $40,000 Lincoln Futura, dubbed "the car of tomorrow"; originally pearlescent white, repainted red for the film¹^•⁵

Spoilers

Plot

In New York, Sergeant Joe Fitzpatrick, on leave and awaiting reassignment, meets Maggie Putnam, a dancer who volunteers at a charity ball selling raffle tickets for a $40,000 Lincoln Futura, hoping to meet a millionaire⁶. Joe buys a raffle ticket, the two date, kiss, and marry the next day⁶. He receives orders to Madrid, and Maggie follows to Spain, where the surprise she has written about turns out to be the car Joe won at the charity raffle⁶.

The central device follows from Maggie's doubt that a marriage begun on one kiss can rest on physical attraction alone: she decrees thirty days without sex to test whether the newlyweds have anything else in common³. Around this abstinence plot, the couple become minor celebrities in Spain because of their futuristic car, are entertained by the bullfighter Antonio Soriano (Gustavo Rojo) and the Marquesa de la Rey (Eva Gabor), and clash with the military and Congress over whether the flashy car should be sent home⁷^•⁶.

Production

A June 1957 New York Times item reported that It Started with a Kiss was the first property producer Aaron Rosenberg purchased under his new MGM contract, with Valentine Davies named as screenwriter; a March 1958 Hollywood Reporter item said Davies was at that time also to direct. Charles Lederer ultimately wrote the screenplay from Davies's story, and George Marshall directed². Filming ran from late February to late April 1959, partly on location in Madrid and Cádiz²^•⁴.

The crew included cinematographer Robert Bronner, editor John McSweeney Jr., art directors Hans Peters and Urie McCleary, costume designer Helen Rose, and composer Jeff Alexander². One scene deliberately recreated a well-known sequence from the 1938 RKO comedy Bringing Up Baby, in which Joe must walk in-step tightly behind Maggie to hide her torn dress².

The Lincoln Futura

The film's most durable claim on attention is its car. The Lincoln Futura was a 1955 concept car, valued at $40,000 and promoted as "the car of tomorrow"; it was originally pearlescent white, a color that did not photograph well, so it was painted red for the film¹^•⁵. The studio built publicity around it: Reynolds and the car appeared on the cover of Life magazine¹. A few years later the same car, modified and painted black, became the Batmobile of the 1966 Batman television series³.

Reception and context

TCM's retrospective essay places the film among the late-1950s Hollywood sex comedies in which innuendo grew more overt and the subject could be spoken of on screen, built on a "when will they end up in bed?" premise¹. Contemporary response was favorable: Variety called the film "highly amusing" and praised Reynolds' "bright, breezy approach to comedy," and Ford ended 1959 as one of the year's top five box-office stars¹. A 1959 New Yorker review described the story as an Air Force sergeant chasing and capturing a "pretty, vainglorious gold-digger," relying on farce conventions of earlier decades⁸.

Later assessments have been cooler. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a Tomatometer of 31% from two reviews; Dennis Schwartz gave it a C+, writing that the most exciting thing about the "touristy breezy romcom" is the Lincoln Futura, and David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews gave it 2 of 4 stars, finding the midsection episodic and hit-and-miss⁹. The film's making-of gossip also fed its publicity: Reynolds' marriage to Eddie Fisher had just ended when Fisher left her for Elizabeth Taylor, one of the era's great tabloid scandals, and during the shoot Ford, newly divorced from Eleanor Powell, proposed to Reynolds, who declined; the two remained friends¹.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1950s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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