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Smoke Em if You Got Em
2008-09-03 09:40
by Alex Belth
 Leo the Lip:

Untitled

I caught some of Midnight Run on TV recently and was struck by how many cigarettes were smoked in that movie.  It didn't faze me at the time, of course, but now...Man, it's hard to imagine that the Smoking-is-Foo! Universe is still so relatively new, isn't it?  In childhood photographs of anyone my age and older, you'll see all forms of grown ups smoking, ashtrays on the coffee tables.  Smoking was replete.

I gave up smoking more than ten years ago.  But every once in awhile I'll see an old movie that still makes smoking look, if not glamourous, then at least desirable.  What are some of your favorite smoking flicks? 

Comments
2008-09-03 10:41:46
1.   dianagramr
Thank You for Smoking

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/

2008-09-03 10:45:18
2.   Biscuit Pants
Casablanca. It would be the same without the smoking.
2008-09-03 10:46:34
3.   bobtaco
Also some of the appeal of Mad Men too.
2008-09-03 10:52:46
4.   domvjr
Any Bogie flick. "To Have and to Have Not", another great flick with alot os smoking.
2008-09-03 11:06:42
5.   Sliced Bread
those Harold and Kumar dudes crack me up.
2008-09-03 11:12:00
6.   Schteeve
All of them. I love smoking. I know I have to quit at some point, but I wish I didn't.
2008-09-03 11:31:06
7.   Raf
5 I would've gone with "half-baked" myself...
2008-09-03 11:44:17
8.   Just fair
Umm. Smoking. arghghghgh. Haven't had one since New Year's Day. "Up in Smoke" : )
2008-09-03 11:46:35
9.   Cliff Corcoran
Smoking looked amazing in black and white, but in color the dirty, smelly reality of the thing comes through. That works well if you're Clint Eastwood with a butt clenched between your teeth in the old west, but otherwise, it's just lame. Seems to me smoking, once used to glamorous effect in black and white, is now used to indicate a female character is of a lower social class, or to indicate a male antagonist.
2008-09-03 11:47:08
10.   Raf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqdTBDkUEEQ
2008-09-03 12:13:59
11.   JL25and3
6 As an ex-smoker, I can say: you will never find a habit that great again. I mean, there is the part about killing you, and making your breath smell, and giving you that morning cough, and burning little holes in your shirts - stuff like that. But man, I still miss it sometimes.
2008-09-03 13:17:11
12.   Chyll Will
What else? Anything that starts with "Cheech & Chong" >;)
2008-09-03 13:30:34
13.   Chyll Will
12 Ah, this else:

http://tinyurl.com/6z3zd4

Sic Semper Tobacconists! >;)

2008-09-03 14:06:46
14.   Cliff Corcoran
11 Smokers seem to fail to realize that bad breath is perhaps the least of the odor problems caused by their habit. That stuff gets in your clothes and hair (or car and house if you smoke there) and stays there. Revolting.
2008-09-03 16:20:38
15.   SteveF
When I was a kid I had a toy saxophone I used to play on. One time my dad, who was a smoker, tried playing it for a few bars.

I was never able to play that toy saxophone again. His 10 seconds of playing the thing caused it to stink forever. No matter how much I tried to clean it, I just couldn't get the stank out. Had to chuck it.

Goddamn I liked it too. Dang.

2008-09-03 16:42:23
16.   spudrph
Reminds me of a quote from a Spenser novel. He's in London, and looking over the Thames. He thinks that, if he still smoked, he could flick the cigarette, still burning, into the river as he walked away. "Not smoking gains in the area of lung cancer, but it loses badly in the realm of dramatic gestures."
2008-09-03 18:11:37
17.   Mr OK Jazz TOKYO
late here, but had to chime in. until VERY recently, Japan was exactly like "Mad Men" (in many ways..) "non smoking" seat at the restaurant meant they took the ashtray away..hospitals have a smoking room, etc etc. and one pack costs less than US$3...

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