And Then He Kissed Me

And Then He Kissed Me (1969) — The Disney Teen Flick That Actually Works

If you're looking for a copy of And Then He Kissed Me, you're going to run into a wall pretty fast. This isn't a movie that's been freshly restored and sitting on Disney+. The rights situation is messy, the film was largely abandoned by the studio for decades, and legitimate copies are harder to track down than most people expect. Let me walk you through what exists, how to actually find it, and what you're likely to run into along the way. The film currently exists in a weird state. It was produced by Walt Disney Productions but fell into obscurity almost immediately after its 1969 release. For years, Disney didn't really acknowledge it existed. The situation improved slightly when it occasionally popped up on Disney Channel in the early 2000s during their classic film rotations, but even then it was inconsistent. Right now, your best legal option is to check if it's available on Disney+. As of my last check, it has appeared there intermittently but tends to rotate in and out based on licensing windows and internal programming decisions. Don't count on it being there today and then gone tomorrow. It happens.

Amazon Prime Video sometimes carries it for rental. You can also find it on YouTube through official channels, though the video quality varies wildly depending on which upload you hit. The VHS source transfers tend to look like garbage. If you're going this route, look for the ones that specifically mention a DVD or better source. I spent probably four hours tracking down a clean copy a few years back. The problem is that Disney had scattered the negative elements across different vault locations and the film was one of those titles they considered lost property for a while. I ended up finding a decent DVD-quality rip from a UK seller on eBay who'd somehow sourced a clean master tape. The print had some vinegar syndrome markers near the end but was watchable. If you're serious about getting a good copy, don't buy the first thing that comes up. Check seller ratings, ask for sample frames, and be prepared to pay $15-30 for something that actually looks acceptable.

What You're Actually Watching

The film stars Lesley Ann Warren as Cheryl, a confident high school senior who wins a contest to take her friend Penny (played by a young Kurt Russell, uncredited in the billing but clearly visible) on a date. The twist is that Penny falls for the guy, creating the standard Disney teen love triangle setup. The film was marketed heavily on the Warren-Russell pairing at the time, though Russell would go on to do significantly more notable work. The runtime is about 88 minutes. It's not a long film, and it doesn't pretend to be deep. It's a product of its era in the most literal sense — the fashion, the dialogue, the entire cultural attitude around teenage dating in the late 60s comes through clearly and sometimes uncomfortably. Here's something most retrospectives miss: the film was actually cut significantly before release. Disney executives felt the romantic tension between the characters was too suggestive for their family brand, so they trimmed scenes that made the plot feel more grounded and contemporary. What survives is a somewhat sanitized version that loses some of the sharper edges. If you compare the theatrical release to early script drafts, there's a noticeable difference in tone. The script drafts had more substance, less polish.

Common Problems People Encounter

The biggest issue I see people running into is subtitle and audio sync problems, especially with the older DVD rips floating around. The NTSC-to-PAL conversions that some uploaders run create frame rate mismatches that throw the audio off by roughly 0.1 to 0.3 seconds. It's subtle enough that most viewers won't notice on a single viewing, but it's there. If you're experiencing lip-sync drift, try a different source rather than adjusting the audio delay in your player — you'll likely just be chasing the problem. Another issue is region coding on physical media. The DVDs that do exist are mostly Region 1 (North America) and Region 2 (UK/Europe). I tried playing a Region 2 disc on a US player and it wouldn't load at all. Some multi-region players handle this, but if you're importing from eBay or similar marketplaces, confirm the region code before buying. A non-working disc is a waste of money whether you can region-free it or not. There's also the matter of video quality variance. Because Disney didn't invest in a proper restoration for a long time, different copies come from different sources — theater prints, broadcast tapes, VHS dubs. A theater print from 1972 will look different from a 1985 TV broadcast transfer. The TV versions sometimes have network logos burned in and varying levels of color degradation. I once acquired what was listed as a "rare original print" and it turned out to be a generational VHS copy of a VHS copy. The listing description was technically accurate but misleading. Always ask for a timestamped screenshot of the actual disc or file before purchasing.

Is It Worth Your Time?

The honest answer is: it depends on what you're looking for. If you're a film historian or a Kurt Russell completist, yes. If you're just looking for an entertaining 1960s teen movie, there are better options. The performances are fine, the production values are adequate for a Disney B-picture, but the script never quite finds its footing between genuine teen drama and corporate sanitization. What does work is the cultural artifact value. The film captures a specific moment in American teen cinema — post-Beatles, pre-disco, when studios were still trying to figure out how to make movies for teenagers without alienating the parents who paid for tickets. The answer, apparently, was to make something that looked contemporary but felt safe. It's not a terrible execution of that brief, but it's not groundbreaking either. If you do track down a copy, I'd recommend watching it with the sound off once just to appreciate the cinematography and production design. The film has some genuinely nice visual work that gets overlooked because the dialogue is so utilitarian. The location shooting around Los Angeles gives it a specific time-and-place feel that a lot of later Disney teen films lost when they moved everything to soundstages.

Check IMDb or Letterboxd for current availability status before you spend money. The streaming landscape for this title changes more often than most people realize, and a link that works today might be gone next month.