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September 2001, Week 2

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From:
Donald Larsson <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Thu, 13 Sep 2001 13:39:37 -0500
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Chris Horak requests:


> NEED HELP!
>
>
> My museum is doing a multi-media exhibition on tobacco smoking in the media.
> I am looking for clips that thematize tobacco smoking in movies, tv,
> commercials, industrials, educationals, etc, preferably pd.

There's a compilation documentary called SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE,
available at:
http://www.mpihomevideo.com/smokthatcig.html

If you're looking for individual scenes, here are some suggestions
besides one mentioned already:

There are the celebrities who are identified with and/or endorsed
cigarettes and subsequently died of lung cancer, including John
Wayne, Bogart and Edward R. Murrow.

There's an early silent film with the intriguing title of "The Nicotine
Fairy" but I do not know if it's available.

You can find online cigarette cards featuring Anna May Wong at The
Silents Majority:
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/FeaturedStar/star49d.htm

A number of films feature cigarette smoking after sex (or its
implication): Mel Brooks spoofs this kind of scene in YOUNG
FRANKENSTEIN, Woody Allen does it with Gene Wilder and the sheep in
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX.

A Donald Duck cartoon, "Donald's Better Self" has a youngish duck being
courted by a "bad" Donald to skip school, smoke, etc., while an angelic
duck tries to persuade him not to. (Smoking turns him green, etc.)

There are other films that also depict bad reactions to smoking when
young--Check out the Our Gang/Little Rascals series, among others. I
seem to recall a similar scene in a Mickey Rooney film.

The Snapper Kid's presence at a "blind pig" is revealed by a puff of
smoke in Griffith's MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY.

There are a number of war films where a soldier shares a last cigarette
with a dying buddy, including THE BIG PARADE.

Cigarettes are tokens of camaderie and/or monetary exchange in other
war and prison films.

In retrospect, there's a rather hilarious sequence in THE DAY THE EARTH
STOOD STILL where doctors who have examined the alien Michael Rennie
are all madly puffing away on cigarettes.

Roy Scheider chain-smokes (along with other self-destructive behaviors)
throughout Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical ALL THAT JAZZ.

The decline and fall of Professor Rath in THE BLUE ANGEL is accentuated
by his drooping cigarette while in clown makeup.

Bette Davis puffs away in ALL ABOUT EVE and many others. Also, Joan
Crawford in MILDRED PIERCE, etc.

In ROBERTA (which features Astaire and Rogers before they headlined
their own films), Irene Dunne wallops the hell out of Jerome Kern's
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." Astaire uses a cigarette to ignite
firecrackers in a dance in HOLIDAY INN.

In THE FEARMAKERS, a bad but interesting anti-Commie movie that ran
recently on Turner Classics Movies channel, smoking has interesting
significations: Dana Andrews' presence in a room is betrayed by a
burning cigarette; labor leaders all chew on big cigars.

As I recall, the gang boss in Fritz Lang's M is always chewing on cigar.

Edward G. Robinson's gangsters, especially in LITTLE CAESAR, are marked
by those iconic cigars. On the other hand, there's Groucho Marx!

Raymond the butler (Paul Stewart) in CITIZEN KANE.

Takashi Shimura in Kurosawa's IKIRU.

Tough women smoking in Hitchcock's films: Florence Bates in REBECCA,
Leopoldine Konstantin in NOTORIOUS, Jessie Royce Landis in IT TAKES A
THIEF. Also, see the cigarette lighter in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (and
Robert Walker popping a kid's balloon with his cigarette).

Bad women smoking in many films, especially *films noirs*: Gloria
Grahame, Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Virginia Mayo in WHITE HEAT, etc.

Gillian Armstrong's Lilly Bart begins to deviate from social norms by
smoking in THE HOUSE OF MIRTH.

More male bonding between Robinson and Fred MacMurray in DOUBLE
INDEMNITY.

Catherine (Jean Moreau) joyously puffs smoke while horsing around with
JULES AND JIM.

You might want to look at documentaries or fictional portrayals of FDR
with that cigarette holder tilted upward (including in PEARL HARBOR, I
believe).

There is a video available of some of Stan Freberg's commercials,
including the one he did for Jeno's Pizza Rolls that is a take-off on
the Lark Cigarettes ad campaign that used the tune of the "William Tell
Overture" (and features Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels as the Lone
Ranger and Tonto). (You have to see it to understand.)

You might give a listen to k.d. lang's album of smoke-related songs
DRAG.

And, of course, Bill Plympton's hilarious and typically perverse
cautionary cartoon, 25 WAYS TO QUIT SMOKING.



Don Larsson




-----------------------------------------------------------
Donald F. Larsson
English Department, AH 230
Minnesota State University
Mankato, MN 56001

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