Did they smoke pot?
I saw this on TCM underground and I thought they were supposed to smoke pot but it seemed like they were just smoking (OH MY GOD!)cigarettes......
shareBack then cigarettes were considered a heath food. They relieved agitation and were cheaper than thorazine.
I didn't see any use of marijuana in the movie either. As for cigarettes, there was a kind of dual message back then about them. There wasn't a lot of information about their health risks, and in most circles smoking was not frowned upon. However, more conservative, often religious people, did not approve of cigarettes. They were associated with undesireable behavior, as seen in this movie. And the term "coffin nail" long pre-dates the 1964 Surgeon General's warning. Many people "knew" cigarettes were bad for you before the evidence was in.
Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever.
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I only seen the last few minutes to "Road to Ruin" but I watched "Escort Girl" and the Perversion documentary, the latter of which I DVRed. I'm interested in looking up the names of all those vintage "girly magazines and see if some of the stuff is online. Am I right in that that documentary came out in 1965? It's too modern to be the fifties. Just think, if it were 1965 when the documentary about perversion was played in theaters, Bob Dylan was thinking about going electric and Like A Rolling Stone was about to invade the airwaves (or already had)! 1965 was a hip year! The Rat Pack was in full Vegas swing, The Beatles had discovered weed (through Bob Dylan) and Bob Crane was drumming in a jazz band in his "off hours" as a relaxation tool from his day job as a "with it" Southern California DJ in a yellow sweater. Of course, we know what he was doing in his "after off hours ("Seen "Auto Focus"?) and thanks to this rare documentary we know what fer magazines were in his stash out in his garage/studio/den at the family home. This era really interests me. I was seven years old and the Four Tops had Reach Out (I'll Be There) on top of the charts!