Cigarettes in fiction

[Alpo]

There was a Richard Burton movie. NIGHT OF THE IGUANA. Took place in Mexico or maybe Central America. All I really remember about it was Burton was a preacher - maybe a missionary - and this one scene.

 

There's an American woman down there. And she ain't got a whole lot of money. She takes out a pack of cigarettes and is about to take one out when Burton asks if he could have a cigarette. And she hesitated a minute - these were the cheapest brand of cigarettes sold down there but still giving away one was expensive. But she handed him the pack and then look shocked as he wadded it up and threw it away.

 

He told her she should not smoke those. Poor people picked up cigarette butts out of the street and sold them to this company, and that's where the company got their tobacco to make cigarettes from. And then he pulls the pack of American cigarettes out of his pocket and told her to have one of his.

 

There's a book on The Faded Page. I was reading the blurb that told what the book was about - see if I wanted to download it. These four or five English guys have decided to spend the winter in France. And everything is going fine until they run out of English cigarettes. So they're trying to figure out how to get some more cigarettes from England without having to pay duty on them when they go through customs.

 

I never thought about that. About only wanting your countries cigarettes. I read of different types of cigarettes in all kinds of books. English cigarettes, French cigarettes, Turkish cigarettes, and of course American cigarettes. World War II books where German soldiers are smoking American cigarettes they took off of American captives.

 

But they're usually using the cigarettes as some kind of example of wealth. In Hong Kong they were smoking cheap yellow Chinese cigarettes. The one Frenchman would be smoking Gauloises, but the wealthy Frenchman next to him would be smoking Players. And if he was really rich he would be smoking Winston.

[Stump Water]

3 hours ago, Alpo said:

He told her she should not smoke those. Poor people picked up cigarette butts out of the street and sold them to this company, and that's where the company got their tobacco to make cigarettes from.

 

Cigarettes in fact...

 

Just out of university in the 80s I did some software development for the QC dept. at L&M.  Imported Turkish tobacco was blended with American burly to make it smoother.  Some of the things they found in the bales of Turkish tobacco - thrown in to "make it weigh" - were pretty cringe-worthy.  

[Alpo]

There is a series of books written back in the '70s, probably. "MASH goes to ..." I think about 15 of them. MASH goes to Vegas, MASH goes to New Orleans, MASH goes to Morocco, MASH goes to London etc etc.

 

In, I think it was, MASH goes to Texas, they talk about this tobacco company. They mostly made cigars. Now when you make a tobacco product you are only supposed to use the leaf. But these people used the entire plant - leaf, stem, roots. It was all tobacco, and it made their cigars cheaper to make. Then they were going with the idea that if it grew in the tobacco field it was tobacco, so any plant that was growing out there got chopped up and turned into cigars.

 

This was fiction, but it sounded awful believable.

[watab kid]

seems like in those days , when i was younger and before that cigarettes' were very important life component , enough so that the government saw fit to pack two in the MREs of the time , i never thought of them as a status symbol , i remember the holders as being that , the snooty folks used them , i always thought they were avoiding the nicotine stains on their fingers , 

 

i only smokedfor a couple years in high school and a couple in college before i quit cold turkey and never touched one since - those that know me i do smoke cigars tho , but im not snooty their either after all im torching money here and i recycle beer - and a little whiskey , 

[Rip Snorter]

When I flew alone in the mid / late '50's as a pre teen to visit with relatives, meals came with a 5 (6?) cigarette pack.  BTW the meals were better than nearly everything  since! I could take the packs home when I left the aircraft - both parents smoked.

Edited January 27 by Rip Snorter
Omission

[Alpo]

There was a Bogey/Bacall movie. Dark Passage. He was convicted of murdering his wife and sent to prison. He escaped and is hiding with Bacall. He had complete plastic surgery.

 

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cb/a1/a8/cba1a8033babf4ce7a6ecb610d506dce.png

 

The doctor told him to drink through a metal tube.

 

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/F4P9C2/humphrey-bogart-lauren-bacall-dark-passage-1947-directed-by-delmer-F4P9C2.jpg

 

And if he wished to smoke to use a holder.

 

https://storage.canalblog.com/45/59/799134/70261370_p.jpg

 

That one seems to be a few inches shorter than the one that FDR used.

[watab kid]

it seemed to me that the long [6-7"] cigarette holders were mostly in the movies , the one or two i saw in real life were shorter [like 3-4"]

[Sedalia Dave]

the quality of cigarettes varies greatly from country to country.  When I was stationed in Spain the most popular brand was Marlboros in the box. The kicker was there were made in the US Marlboros  and not made in the US Marlboros. There was a very slight difference in the packaging but I don't recall what it was.

I have never smoked but had lots of friends that did. They all said non US made Marlboros were vastly inferior to those made in the US.

 

US made Marlboros were very popular with the locals and even though I didn't smoke I always carried a pack. It was an easy way to say thanks when a local helped you out. Sometimes I would give them a cigarette when asked and if they were especially helpful I would give them the whole pack or what remained of it.

 

In all my travels with the Navy I never met an American that preferred locally made cigarettes over those made in the US.

[Alpo]

Back in the long ago times, when I still smoked, I found a store that was selling Players. That's a British cigarette. And I bought a pack.

 

When I was over at this girl's house, she saw the box and was all - "Players!!??"

 

Yeah. Would you like one?

 

And it was like she was drinking Dom Perignon or cognac, or 20 year old single malt. She was so enjoying the taste of that British cigarette. When she got to the end she says, "One last luxurious puff", and took that last drag.

 

I didn't get it. Tasted like the Benson and Hedges that I was used to smoking. Damn sure wasn't worth 50 cents more a pack. When I'm paying a dollar a pack for B&H, another 50 cents for British smokes? This one time just to see what it was like but certainly not as a regular thing.

 

In high school I smoked these things called Winchester. They claimed it was a little cigar. It was brown instead of white, but it had a filter tip and it came 20 to a pack, so I figured they were cigarettes. And they were a quarter where Marlboros were 48 cents.

 

They were a little rough, and one day I ate a Reese's cup and washed it down with a root beer and then lit up a Winchester. And the flavor in my mouth was so nasty I threw the pack away and quit smoking for 2 years. That was the longest I had ever quit, until this last time which is rolling up on 40.

[KatfishKid]

As a smoker, I only smoke one particular brand and would rather not have a cigarette at all if it's not "my" brand. My grandma came to the US from Germany in her 30s and had always smoked Sobranie cigarettes. I believe they are made in England. For years her sister would send her Sobranie cigarettes until it became impossible to do so. She quit smoking all together and said US cigarettes are nothing but floor sweepings and horse manure. 

[watab kid]

i remember sherlock holmes being able to identify the source of cigarettes by the ash and tobacco left in the ash tray in a few of his episodes as well , 

[Alpo]

In one of the early stories he mentions having written a monograph on how to tell the difference between cigarette ashes.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

10 hours ago, watab kid said:

i remember sherlock holmes being able to identify the source of cigarettes by the ash and tobacco left in the ash tray in a few of his episodes as well , 

 

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

In one of the early stories he mentions having written a monograph on how to tell the difference between cigarette ashes.

He mentioned it several times in the original stories, and I remember seeing in one movie, (it was years ago, so I don't remember WHICH movie), he had some device "smoking" about two dozen cigarettes at a time with ashtrays to catch the ashes for comparison. 

[Will Kane]

When it comes to cigarettes used in fiction portrayed in cinema, John Wayne was a master at using cigarettes as props.

[watab kid]

12 hours ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

 

He mentioned it several times in the original stories, and I remember seeing in one movie, (it was years ago, so I don't remember WHICH movie), he had some device "smoking" about two dozen cigarettes at a time with ashtrays to catch the ashes for comparison. 

i remember that smoking machine - cant recall what case that was either tho ,