Holy Smoke! Hollywood’s Golden Age were paid big bucks to light up
Those nasty, cancer promoting tobacco giants. Remember all those old films you saw in which people like Clarke Gable and Joan Crawford lit up in a hazy room of cigarette smoke. It was all because they were paid big bucks by large tobacco companies.
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- Tags: Hollywood, Joan Crawford, smoking
Don’t tell me: next bit of news around all this is that everybody who smoked back then was also . . . gay!
ReplyPerhaps Lucky Strike is the mastermind behind the hit show, “Mad Men.” Or perhaps its the National Lung Cancer Foundation. Viewers have reportedly claimed to be having chest pains and feel short of breath simply by watching the popular AMC series where characters in the 1950’s light up at almost every commercial-free moment. Audiences can get a realistic glimpse of yesteryear, where smoking was tolerated in hospitals, offices, and even airplanes. There is a direct focus, however, on the “dark side” of nicotine, the one that shows mom puffing away as she furiously scrubs the leftover meatloaf off the bunt pan. Where airplanes are congested with hazy smoke as passengers can barely see the person sitting next to them. And where ad execs tried their best to convince consumers to keep puffing away, even after they had evidence it caused cancer and led to an imminent and painful death. Ah, the golden days!
ReplyEven if my tv shot out continuous plumes of smoke while “Mad Men” was on and gave me lung cancer, I would still tune in religiously until my lungs were as black as their suits. It’s that good. In fact, no one steal that idea. I smell a “Mad Men 4D” theme park attraction based on this concept in the near future. Or maybe I just smell toast burning.
As far as tobacco companies paying off studios back in the day to feature stars smoking cigarettes, it’s a shrewd but brilliant move. I wish more industries would move their advertising campaigns in that direction. Imagine how much better a summer blockbuster would be if one character sported a constant milk mustache throughout the film. Or if Bee Movie had starred that bee with the bad Antonio Banderas accent from the Nasonex commercials. Or best of all, if the makers of LSD pooled together funds to sponsor their own major motion picture. Oh wait, that was called Speed Racer.
ReplyMMMM, yeah the glamour of sucking down high blood pressure, hardened arteries, stained teeth, hacking, tracheotomy tubes, emphysema, and cancer. I think big tobacco should revise the bible and insert a passage where Jesus turns pretzels into cigs and then sucks one down as he moonwalks on a lake. Or pay Stan Lee to make Spiderman smoke a Kool one hundred after every criminal he beats down. They should even get that smiling baby sun from Teletubbies to smoke Parliaments too, you gotta get em when they’re young.
ReplyNo no no, people! Come on now, at that time (before, what was it… 1966 or 1967? Maybe ‘68 or ‘69 before the Cancer alarm was announced?), tobacco did not pose a THREAT. So advertising for Lucky Strike or any other brand of cigarette may have been reason for the smoke, but there’s much more going on here. Sure, it was to “look cool,” but look closer. That is NOT Joan Crawford, or any other celebrity, for that matter. Closer to Clark Gable, definitely, that is an early TRANSVESTITE being advertised. Look again. With all that make-up. that wig, and that awkward positioning, how could you not see that “SHE” has a penis dangling up front? Under all that Persian “Ali Baba” garb, yup… That’s a malnourished, feeble, and quite HUNGRY man. In fact, that’s the REASON for all that Persian “Ali Baba” garb! Go on — look a bit more closely one last time.
ReplyI don’t have much to say on this subject except that I love the photo–Joan’s fabulous–with or without a cigarette.
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