Ed Munns cigar...


...smoke in the baby Laurels face while shes locked in the high chair eating her meal no less ! Man, he blows it directly in the childs face and sits there in front of her holding the cigar as the smoke drifts towards her face. The scene was set up so the father would be upset when he arrives home to find the 3 of them together looking too comfy and pedestrian but thats not an excuse to treat this very real baby this way ... and I'm an old school smoker ! These days,someone would have made a call from the set to child protective services, production would have been shut down, the child taken away from the mother for allowing her child to be used in this manner, Hale, Stanwyck and anyone who was on the set who willing participated in the 'abuse' woulda been charged with endangering the welfare of a child. And the headlines ? Forgetta 'bout it !!
I'm not an anti smokin' Nazi (obviously) but still, even I was shocked by this scene. All the 'consciocness raising' on the ills of smokin' musta had an effect on me. Even if cigar smoke wasn't bad for you, it still would have to be uncomfortable for a child, with child sized lungs, to have smoke blown in its face like that with no way to escape the plumes let alone while trying to eat.
OK, got that off me chest ...

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I agree. The Ed Munn character is ANNOYING too!!!!! I wouldn't have let that drunkard anywhere near my child. The little baby was adorable though. Did you notice right after that, when the actor playing her father is holding her, she kisses him on the cheek? Cute.





AVADA KEDAVRA!!!

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You have to be aware that smoking was quite common back then. People did not know about all of the bad that could come of it. Actually, a common practice when children had an earache was to blow smoke into the ear. People had no reason to think this was a bad thing to do.

The people aren't being abusive~not in that time period! So, it's silly to go on and on about it. You're trying to apply present-day knowledge to a film from the 1930s! I don't rage about my father and grandfathers and uncles smoking cigarettes, cigars and pipes around us when we were growing up. No one knew about the dangers, so this was not abuse!

Even when early studies were emerging, it would have been difficult to inform the general public. Getting non-smoking areas was a very drawnout battle, even when people had been made aware of repercussions.

*** The trouble with reality is there is no background music. ***

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Hey folks,

As suggested in MystMoonstruck's post, Ironman's point of view is a classic case of applying our standards of today to another time with some very different ideas about many things, including the use of tobacco. Remember, the film begins in 1919, and there certainly was no Surgeon General's report on smoking risks.

When I was just a young lad after World War II, I had a couple of uncles who blew smoke in my face frequently, and my parents never considered their actions to be abusive. It was just part of life at that time. My father never smoked, but my mother did. By the time I was ten years old, I started smoking regularly, albeit without my parents' knowledge or approval. Married in 1964, my wife and I were both smokers, and we had our first daughter in 1968.

Much as my uncles had done to my brother and me, I also blew smoke in my daughter's face. My job was such that I drove a good many miles each day in rural areas, and once my daughter was out of diapers, I frequently took her with me while doing my work. As I drove along, my young daughter stood on the seat beside me while I smoked away. No, she was neither seat belted nor in a car seat as they require today.

Thankfully, our daughters lived through those dangerous times, and my wife and I stopped smoking by 1975. When I see what our daughters did to protect our grandchildren while driving, and when I consider how none of us smoke any longer and would never blow smoke in anyone's face as was once done, I do have to marvel as to how times have changed just in my lifetime.

There are many things today that I really do not like, but I certainly am glad for some of the changes that have taken place. We cannot, however, look at a story from the 1920s and expect the folks of that time and place to exhibit the same values we find commomplace today.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile


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Absolutely, the number of people who drop down dead because someone blows smoke in there face in truly shocking!! I remember in The Maltese Falcon, as an insult, Humphrey Bogart blows directly into Elisha Cook's face. How he survived was miraculous!

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The camera panning to the small dish and spoon belonging to baby Lauren---with Ed Munn's disgusting cigar put out in the middle of it---was just about all Stephen Dallas could handle! Had he been a hot-tempered man, Ed would have left a number of his teeth on Stella's floor for this transgression!

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Applying today's ideas to characters of 1919 or film makers of 1937 is a mistake. When I was a kid, in the '50s and '60s, every adult in my family and all of their friends smoked all of the time, except when they were asleep or in the shower. There were ashtrays in libraries, restaurants, and doctors' offices, and cigarette butts covered the floors in grocery stores. That was the way the world was, and if I complained about the clouds of smoke in the car or the living room I was told in a cross tone of voice to keep quiet. It was, oddly enough, a very healthy environment for me, because I found it so disgusting that I never took up the vile habit myself!

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I was disturbed by how the child was being treated in that scene but the cigar never even came to mind until i saw it on her highchair.

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