Did they try to promote Smoking in old movies? they sure smoked a lot

[Fading Fast]

They're not just "ubiquitous in police procedurals" as a fake brand. The Greek coffee cup is a legitimate NYC tradition, used for decades!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthora

http://www.nycoffeecup.com/

When I started working in NYC in the early '80s, that coffee cup was the coffee cup used 90% or more of the time. In diners, coffee shops, coffee carts, not-fancy restaurants, food trucks - that cup was how you got coffee.

It was only when Starbucks and its ilk come in the mid / late '90s that the cup lost its complete lock on the market. That said, I still see them all the time in the city.

 

[HudsonHawk]

As children, we played "cigarette tag," in which the person who was "it" tried to tag you before you quickly squatted and called out the name of a cigarette brand. No brand could be called out twice, and even as kids, we knew enough brand names to keep playing several rounds. Eventually, you ran out of brands and had to just flee the tagger.
There was also a version we called "cereal tag," with breakfast cereal brand names used instead. With cereal tag, you got arguments, though. Does "oatmeal" qualify? Stop the game and sort it out before proceeding.

I don't recall playing "cigarette tag", but we played similar games of "TV tag", "movie tag" etc. Makes me wonder how many kids today have ever played tag of any variety. Or just make up a game and played. I'd like to think kids still kill a few hours doing that, but I don't know.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm sure kids play tag somewhere, but it has organized leagues, schedules, uniforms, and coaches so that it wlll look good on a college resume.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I'm sure kids play tag somewhere, but it has organized leagues, schedules, uniforms, and coaches so that it wlll look good on a college resume.

Possibly even "select" traveling tag leagues with tournaments and team equipment bags.

 

[belfastboy]

Possibly even "select" traveling tag leagues with tournaments and team equipment bags.

And parents conducting bottle drives and other sundry fund raising activities to buy all that crap.

 

[belfastboy]

Back to the issue of smoking....I have been watching a lot of British TV series (and some European)on Netflix recently. Most of it brilliantly written, acted and produced. But it is stunning how much smoking goes on. It is modern in its context as they have to smoke outside but stunning in the regularity of it all.

 

[belfastboy]

I watch a lot of the old classics, especially the Film Noir Classics and some of these movies, every scene shows them smoking, or offering somebody a cigarette or asking for a light, or rewarding somebody by offering a cigarette, or smoking while doing some activity

they seemed to really be pushing the smoking in several scenes? do you think they were trying to promote smoking or help the tobbaco companies?

they seem to over do the smoking in those old movies?

I suspect it has more to do with it as a "device" either for the writer or director. It gives a context for two (or more) people to hang out and start a conversation. The cigarette acts as the prompt to give them the time and space for it to occur within.

 

[BlueTrain]

I'm always rather surprised at the amount of drinking in British TV shows.

There are some YouTube videos of men going through the British military academy at Sandhurst. I think they were made probably in the 1990s, maybe later. Their training is in two parts, the first part was more like basic military training in which you learn to polish things while being yelled at by a sergeant-major. The second part was academic, consisting of classroom lectures by civilian instructors. It showed the men--gentlemen by then, I suppose, in a classroom and most were smoking. But when I was in college in the late 1960s and early 70s, some instructors allowed smoking in class.

 

[emigran]

I quit smoking cigs 30 yrs ago...
One flick says most of it... Now Voyager when Paul Henreid lights two sticks simultaneously for himself and Bette...

 

[basbol13]

I quit smoking cigs 30 yrs ago...
One flick says most of it... Now Voyager when Paul Henreid lights two sticks simultaneously for himself and Bette...

I agree, two coffin nails at the same time is overkill......no pun intended.

Just watched "The Man in the High Castle" you want to talk about pushing smoking, there isn't a scene in the movie where there isn't smoking, I'm going a little overboard, but there really is a preponderance of smoking. All the main characters smoke numerous time, with all that smoking you'd wonder how the crew was able to stand all the secondary smoke.

 

[Fading Fast]

I agree, two coffin nails at the same time is overkill......no pun intended.

Just watched "The Man in the High Castle" you want to talk about pushing smoking, there isn't a scene in the movie where there isn't smoking, I'm going a little overboard, but there really is a preponderance of smoking. All the main characters smoke numerous time, with all that smoking you'd wonder how the crew was able to stand all the secondary smoke.

Agreed and I often though the same thing on "Mad Men." Do all these actors smoke or do they just do it for the role? If just for the role, I bet some get hooked on it.

For "Mad Men," I got it - it's history and they smoked. But for "The Man in the High Castle," heck, it's alternate history and Hitler hated smoking - why not lift the smoking out, reference it to Hitler's preference and move on without it?

 

[Doctor Strange]

By environmental/industry law, the "cigarettes" used in TV show production (and I think movies too) these days aren't real. They are harmless herbal cigs that look and smoke like real thing, but they contain no tobacco. So despite all the smoking you saw on Mad Men, none of the cast got addicted... unless they were off-screen smokers already.

 

[BlueTrain]

I don't get it; smoke is smoke, isn't it?

 

[Doctor Strange]

No. There are all kinds of smoke: it depends on what's being burnt. Some smoke is more dangerous than others.

Nicotine is the most addictive substance known to man. If there's no tobacco/nicotine, there's no chance of habit or addiction. And normal cigarettes are loaded with tars and chemical additives (e.g., substances to ensure even burning) that promote lung damage and cancer. The herbal cigs have little or none of that.

 

[Frunobulax]

No. There are all kinds of smoke: it depends on what's being burnt. Some smoke is more dangerous than others.

Nicotine is the most addictive substance known to man. If there's no tobacco/nicotine, there's no chance of habit or addiction. And normal cigarettes are loaded with tars and chemical additives (e.g., substances to ensure even burning) that promote lung damage and cancer. The herbal cigs have little or none of that.

There's probably still an exposure limit to the smoke being used, though. Particulates are still an issue.


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

 

[Doctor Strange]

You're probably right. My point was just that they're prop cigs that aren't as toxic as real ones, nor do they lead to addiction.

 

[basbol13]

No. There are all kinds of smoke: it depends on what's being burnt. Some smoke is more dangerous than others.

Nicotine is the most addictive substance known to man. If there's no tobacco/nicotine, there's no chance of habit or addiction. And normal cigarettes are loaded with tars and chemical additives (e.g., substances to ensure even burning) that promote lung damage and cancer. The herbal cigs have little or none of that.

One aspect of cigarettes not considered is the paper itself. Additives are introduced into the cigarette paper to enhance the speed of burn, thereby increasing the amount of cigarettes smoked. I don't know how it is now, but in the "old days" American cigarettes burned almost twice as fast as their European counter part. I did the test myself, but of course I'm no scientist and someone could refute this, but the US cigs did burn faster than the Euros. Also consider all the chemicals in the paper that when ingested into the lungs are carcinogenic. In summary, it's not the tobacco so much as it is the paper which I believe causes a high percentage on lung cancer. I'm not discounting tobacco, just feel that the paper is also a factor to consider.

 

[LizzieMaine]

All cigarettes sold in the US today are required to be "self extinguishing" as a fire-preventative measure, which adds another layer to the mystery ingredient list. I strongly recommend Richard Kluge's utterly damning hundred-year history of the tobacco industry, "Ashes to Ashes" for full documentation of the substances that are added to cigarettes to make them palatable, to suppress the natural tendency of the lungs to reject smoke, and to make them even more addictive than they are naturally. Big Tobacco isn't just an industry of poisoners, they are, and have been for the past century, deliberate and willful poisoners.

 

[MikeKardec]

Just watched "The Man in the High Castle" you want to talk about pushing smoking, there isn't a scene in the movie where there isn't smoking, I'm going a little overboard, but there really is a preponderance of smoking. All the main characters smoke numerous time, with all that smoking you'd wonder how the crew was able to stand all the secondary smoke.

I probably went on too long about the details of movie smoking in my page-one post but I'll pop back in and say that with all the "effect" smoke used in movies, just to make the lighting look good and not having anything to do with cigarettes, the actual cigarette smoke just gets lost in the shuffle. High Castle, to me, looks like an effect smoke heavy show but there maybe other lighting techniques at work. I hate Smoke Cookie effect smoke or aerosol haze and the old stuff (when I started working) was unhealthy, I believe that the Screen Actor's Guild forced a formula change.

I agree that fake cigarettes are non addictive and somewhat safer but if second hand smoke is bad then I find it hard to believe that "herbal" cigarettes are any better. I have smoked them when I was thrown in as an Extra (the fate of off duty crew and producers caught hanging around) and they seemed (to a nonsmoker) to be just as obnoxious as real cigarettes when you're just exposed for a couple of hours, nothing good about sucking any sort of smoke into your lungs. As an extra I believe you get paid more (I didn't as I was drafted) if you have to smoke or are exposed to the smoke/haze solution used on movie sets.

 

[Frunobulax]

You're probably right. My point was just that they're prop cigs that aren't as toxic as real ones, nor do they lead to addiction.

If OSHA can impose a standard, believe me they will. [emoji4]


Sent directly from my mind to yours.