Smoking In The Old Movies

[Uncle Stevie]

While watching all those old movies I noticed that almost every actor smokes, both men and women. It was almost a right of passage. Sometimes there is so much smoke there is a haze in the scene. It is something not seen in today's movies. So many old time actors died early of cancer we wonder if all that smoking in the crowd had an effect. I also wonder if any actor refused to smoke and how many did not.

I did smoke heavily myself as a younger person but quit 45 years ago and am thankful for it.

[charliechaplinfan]

I like the effect of smoke in still pictures and a screen. There was an art to the way some of the old screen heros and heroines handled a cigarette, so many people smoked on screen I couldn't imagine being in a room with them. I haven't smoked for years and when I did it was only socially, I don't even know anyone who smokes. I still like the smell of cigarette smell but hate the smell of stale cigarette smoke. I think smoking is confined for me to being a nostalgic hankering for the past and is one part of the past that I colud happily leave there.

[pvitari]

From what I read, cinematographers loved smoking on screen because the smoke made for such great lighting effects. ;)

I'm really glad there is little smoking in the movies these days even if it means no smoky haze to make the actors look glamorous or give them something to do with their hands. :) Amazing how something so harmful could strike so many romantic flames... or comedy. :)

Of course where would we be without these iconic images (as a small selection). :)

[knitwit45]

[Uncle Stevie]

Great photos. Good job.

[pvitari]

I tried and tried to find a photo of Paul Henreid lighting up the two cigarettes in Now, Voyager but no luck!

[MichiganJ]

My vote for best cigarette lighting scene would be Gilbert and Garbo in Flesh and the Devil. Gilbert fumbles with the match, Garbo's face illuminates from below, she blows out the match…

"You know…when you blow out a match…
That's an invitation to kiss you…?"

Too much talk for Garbo, who pulls Gilbert to her….

[knitwit45]

I tried and tried to find a photo of Paul Henreid lighting up the two cigarettes in Now, Voyager but no luck!

Me too! I have hunted all day, only found the one of Bette AFTER Paul handed her the cigarette.

[The Ingenue]

Will this do?

The script called for me to light one [cigarette], give it to Bette, light another and trade cigarettes with her. Cigarettes would be shuffling all over the place, so I suggested my lighting them both at once. -- Paul Henried (quoted in Forties Film Talk, p. 268.)

A later Warner Bros. movie includes a wink to this moment: In The Voice of the Turtle (1948), director Irving Rapper's camera casually surveys the patrons of a restaurant, and among them is a serviceman who lights cigarettes a la Henreid, and hands one to his girl.

I believe the business is not original to Henried, however. I seem to remember seeing it in a movie of the early '30s. Can anyone place the moment for me? It fades in memory, being less indelibly printed than those scenes of Now, Voyager.

[pvitari]

Carrie, thanks for those Now, Voyager pics!

Here's another screencap from The Man Who Came Back, which I should add was shot by Raoul Walsh's longtime cinematographer, Arthur Edeson. They first worked together on The Thief of Bagdad with Douglas Fairbanks.

[jdb1]

Lighting effects isn't the only reason there is so much smoking in classic films. People were shown smoking for characterization as well. Smoking long, elegant cigarettes was considered sophisticated, and smoking roll-your-owns was considered macho. (And these considerations are still in effect among teens, who think they're immortal.)

Also, I suspect that there were commercial tie-ins as well, with so many radio programs being sponsored by tobacco companies, and radio being a venue for abbreviated versions of photoplays which were broadcast to encourage movie attendance.

I heard recently a broadcast of a Benny Goodman radio program sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes, and it was absolutely appalling how every single aspect of the program was used as a venue to mention the product, no doubt because you couldn't actually see the participants smoking. (The promos said that Chesterfield's more expensive tobaccos were justified because they were "healthier").

[JackFavell]

I am very much in agreement with CCFan, in that it brings back the past which I will gladly leave there.

I like to look for actors and actresses who don't inhale.....there are many, many, who do this, including Bette the queen of the smokers, and in some ways it is the more elegant way to achieve what is wanted, as the smoke distributes more easily to the place you wanted it to go.

One of the best movie uses of smoke and cigarettes themselves is in Sunset Boulevard, in which (and I am taking symbolism to an extreme here)cigarettes are used as an indicator of sexual pleasure, entrapment, slavery, as a stand in for the hero himself (there is something to be said for thinking of Joe as a cigarette), and finally smoke as a symbol of delusion.

Norma has trapped her cigarette (Joe) in the little circular holder which is literally a part of her:



Norma will suck the life out of the cigarette, burn this fellow out:


Joe is now smoking, and the smoke is curling upward toward his head from the ashtray - he has caught a little delusion of his own:


but he will be trapped by it:


Smoke encircling Norma's head in the light - it actually looks like she is on fire, a medusa of smoke:


Delusion:


Joe is brought further into Norma's secrets. Every bit of knowledge he gains about her leads him further into slavery:



Joe is caught.... he doesn't even realize it because he has his own cigarette case (this mimics the shape of the pool, or the monkey coffin)......

but she is snapping the lid shut:


Joe thinking about Betty:


Betty finds the evidence of Joe's slavery (I like the way the camera "discovers" the case, and zooms in on it to an enormous closeup):


The case in Betty's innocent hand looks almost obscene. It is disturbing to see it gleaming there next to such sweetness:


Pushing it a little, the gun lights up like the end of a cigarette or lighter:


Norma's powder puffs up in the air around her head (another symbol of her delusion) and dissipates rapidly - she is almost burned out:


Norma turns to smoke before our eyes. Will we be contaminated by the smoke of her delusion? Can you feel it?

[charliechaplinfan]

You know that movie back to front, Jack. Thanks for posting all those screenshots, I love Sunset Boulevard.

[JackFavell]

I'm sorry if I hogged the thread.... or if I posted these thoughts before.

I have had this idea about the cigarettes in the back of my mind since the last time SB was on. Something about the scene with the two matching cigarette cases and the way she tells Joe to run in and pick up some cigs for her made me sit up and notice - once she has him trapped he becomes no more than an an errand boy to fetch those ever present smokes.... and that made me look a little deeper into the whole cigarette imagery.

And I love the movie too.

[JackFavell]

Michigan,

I completely agree with you about Flesh and the Devil, in fact, I've had this gif for the longest time because I love it so much.