10 Movies to Put Him in the Mood

That Certain Something

It's not just the plot of a movie that stirs our passions. The right mix of charm, allure, and flesh can lead us to get busy on an action flick of our own. Who doesn't remember Brad Pitt's bad-boy role in Thelma and Louise? Pitt's turn as the lean hitchhiker who made out with Thelma (Geena Davis) and then made off with all of Louise's (Susan Sarandon) cash certainly made an impression.

But most men will agree that what turns us on isn't usually appealing to them. For example, men usually hate chick flicks. So to find out what puts him in the mood, we went straight to the source. There's something for every man in this list of movies, from action-packed to foreign fantasies. So put on something special and settle in for a night of romance.

My husband and I have watched Clint Eastwood play gunslinger William Munny countless times, and it's become a surefire strategy for love. Why? "Westerns give me a sense of freedom even though I know in the old days things weren't actually all that wonderful," he says. He admires Eastwood's independent spirit, even though he acknowledges that being a sharp-shooting killer is a weird kind of freedom. And most important, he says, "riding off on a quest is a classic metaphor for romance."

Especially The Seven Year Itch, says Chris, an accountant. With his wife and son off on vacation, publisher Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) fantasizes (1955-style) about his curvaceous new neighbor (Marilyn Monroe). "It's every man's fantasy, even though poor Richard never gets the gumption to do it with Marilyn," says Chris.

English professor Jonah Raskin prefers To Have and to Have Not, featuring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who reportedly fell in love during filming. He loves the steamy dialogue between the romantic leads. "It's one long seduction," says Jonah.

But Gerry Haslam (also an English professor) prefers Casablanca. "The contained passion is more powerful than an overt expression, and more recognizable, since so many of us hold back our deepest emotions," says Gerry. "Bogart demonstrates the depth and honesty of his love by not taking advantage of it. Casablanca is a symbolic corollary to many, many relationships."

Loyalists to Michael Palin found this film (also starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline) particularly thrilling and romantic. Michael, a computer programmer, says, "The movie serves as the best compromise between men's desire for action and hot sex, and women's desire for sappy love stories about people in much more misery than themselves." Ouch!

Mark, a happily married California mortgage broker, sums it up this way: "A guy (Steve Railsback) is running from the law. He falls into the stunt man job accidentally, and sticks around because he falls for the leading lady (Barbara Hershey). Barbara is definitely part of the attraction. In the last scene, she looks very voluptuous walking through mud." Need we say more?