I love old movies, BUT ...

[Jeebo]

I love old movies, BUT one thing that always bothers me about them ... well, not the only thing, but the one I'm talking about now ... is that whenever people sit down to talk about something, they ALWAYS do two things: 1) light up a cigarette, and 2) mix up a drink. TCM shows a lot of those old movies. Last night I watched "Mildred Pierce" (1945, four years before I was born) and every single adult character in that movie smokes like a chimney and drinks like a fish. They CAN'T have a conversation without a scotch on the rocks and a cigarette. This seems to be the case with almost every movie made in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s.

Am I the only person who's bothered by this?

In case you're wondering, I used to be a nicotinic but quit in 1990, and I've never been a drinker at all. So I guess I wouldn't fit in as a character in any of those movies. I wouldn't be smoking and I would be drinking tea or Dr. Pepper, or nothing at all.

-- Ron

[Diamond_Dog]

1. We too notice all the smoking.

I guess that was how people were back then. It seems so strange now.

As a woman, I always notice the way many women in old movies are objectified.

[Tetrachloride]

2. I call it The Bored Life.

“My cigarette is the way to express my true self.”

[patricia92243]

3. Noticed on cable all the new movies have smoking. Tobacco industry not able to

use network tv has found a way to peddle their poison.

[Lettuce Be]

4. Pretty sure it was a promotional type thing. Product placement is big $ in movies

What I don't like is how often a man will strike a woman, and afterward, it's always a love scene.

[IjustDontlikeRepugs]

5. Here's a Family Guy parody of just that.

https://m.

[Irish_Dem]

6. People used to smoke everywhere.

As a young woman I was in the hospital for surgery.
I was quite sick afterwards with nausea. In a big open ward,
people in other beds were smoking and smoke was everywhere.

When I complained that the smoke was making me more ill,
the patients around me arrogantly stated they were paying for their
beds and would smoke all they wanted.

I told one of the nurses that one day smoking would not be
permitted in hospital patient rooms and she just laughed and said
she didn't think that would ever happen. It was a free country, etc.

[LakeArenal]

7. Doesn't bother me. It was a different time.

If you looked closely, Andy of Mayberry and Ward Cleaver smoked.

I think Ben Gazzara worked in a hospital and they smoked.

Pretty sure Rod Serling smoked.

I love the scene in Now Voyage where Betty Davis’ cigarette smoke entwines with Franchot Tone‘s. For the times that was bittersweet and erotic symbolism.

[yorkster]

8. Paul Henreid, I think, in Now Voyager. Great film.....n/t

[LakeArenal]

11. Oh yes. Other tear jerker with Tone.

[BigmanPigman]

9. I was watching Casablanca the other night

and they ALL smoked constantly. Most older movies and TV shows have constant smoking, even in hospitals, etc. That is why we notice it so much now. We can look back and see when smoking cigs started to be viewed as a bad thing.

What I found ironic while watching Dog Day Afternoon was Cazale's lecturing one of the hostages about suddenly taking up smoking from the stress of being a hostage. He said she "shouldn't do that to your body and she was weak". Two years later he died of lung cancer at 42. Nehad been a heavy smoker his whole life.

I recall an old Rosanne episode (when the show first started and was entertaining) when she tried to quit smoking and she listed all the old TV shows from the 50s and 60s who influenced her while growing up ..... Ward Cleaver, Get Smart (even the robot), "both Darins" from Bewitched, Genie, Rob and Laura and Millie and Jerry on Dick Van Dyke, etc.

[John1956PA]

10. Fred MacMurray could deliver his lines while eating popcorn.

[Jeebo]

16. Apparently Claudette Colbert could, too.

Did they smoke and drink after the popcorn?

-- Ron

[Auggie]

12. I'm not bothered by it

[Jeebo]

13. There's something about the ASSUMPTION that everybody smokes.

An extraterrestrial visitor seeing those old movies would think that EVERYBODY on this planet smokes cigarettes and drinks hard liquor. There is in that assumption some kind of bigotry or prejudice against non-smokers and non-drinkers, in that refusal to acknowledge that we even exist.

-- Ron

[LoisB]

14. Doesn't bother me at all. Different times. Having a martini and cigarette was considered "cool".

[Lulu KC]

15. As a former smoker

it really makes me have a little fantasy about having a cigarette. I can dismiss it quickly, but it does look like fun!

Back when I did smoke I remember sometimes feeling like I was Ingrid Bergman when I lit a cigarette. What a tough addiction that one was to quit!

[ZonkerHarris]

17. Cigarettes and alchohol were much more ubiquitous back in the day. Smoke in an elevator? Sure

Drink at work in the guise of business? Yup.
That's just how it was.