I've been watching several films from the 1940s and in all of them the characters are drinking. Was this exaggerated in films or was it normal for people to drink throughout the day at the drop of a hat in those times?
shareI've wondered about this myself.
When the film concerns lower-class people, in my opinion, the drinking seems more in keeping with their life-style and is not that apparent or outlandish. Not to disparage them, but they may drink more to ease the pain of their lives.
But, seeing the "upper crust" drink all day and any time of the day gives me pause.
I like a couple of good belts at an appropriate time of day, but if I drank like that -- I'd always be ready for a nap!
You wonder how they functioned.....
Since those were the years of the three martini lunch, you wonder how any business was transacted!
I do love the "cocktail hats" women wore in those days, as seen in Laura and "The Big Clock" (1948)
I'd say it would be far easier to transact business then. Even bad ideas must seem great after a few drinks!
shareI have a set of vintage martini glasses....they are much smaller than the huge things you get today. If you watch "The Thin Man" where Nick and Nora are drinking martinis at lunch, you will see the smaller glassware. Of course, if you knock back 5 of them like Nora, the size of the glass will no longer be much of an issue.
shareThey really did dink that much. I grew up in that era, and the grownups could really pack it away. Keep in mind a Martini is pure highball booze.aperitifs before a meal, wine with a meal, port after a meal and then cocktails. Every night.
shareWhen I was a kid (late 60s, early 70s) we had an Uncle (actually, my Mom's) who we visited whenever we were visiting family in the same town.... there were ALWAYS cocktails (with Shirley Temples for us!). My understanding is that it was a holdover from the 40s & 50s. I never saw any of the adults drunk, though...
shareDepends on if you mean much as "often" or much as "a whole lot of booze".
I grew up during the "Mad Men" era and recall lots of middle-class people had cocktail hours or drinks (of hard liquor, not wine) before dinner and also went to cocktail parties. Of course, the hard-core drinkers drank a lot. As for the rest, drinking was more a ritual of marking times of the day and socializing with one's friends and business associates; hence the custom of taking a drink and "nursing it", i.e, taking just tiny sips to make it last.
Cigarette smoking was far more prevalent, too. Except for hospitals, I don't really recall public places as being smoke-free.
And people, even those in very modest circumstances, dressed more formally. If they were wearing shirts and pants or worn-out clothes to do chores in the house or yard, they changed clothes to something a bit nicer, even if they were just running to the store to buy a bottle of Black Pony.
"The night was sultry."
Cigarette smoking was far more prevalent, too. Except for hospitals, I don't really recall public places as being smoke-free.
what? when u saw a doctor he was most likely smoking. movies r famous for the smoking father waiting for child to be born. IN HOSPITALS!
when u saw a doctor he was most likely smoking. movies r famous for the smoking father waiting for child to be born. IN HOSPITALS!
Back in the 1970s I had a friend whose mother was in the hospital for lung problems. She smoked in her room. She would just turn off the oxygen and light up.
shareWhat do you mean DID people drink that much there are stil quite a few that do...
shareMy parents were party animals. I only remember the 60's and 70's when they were already well into their stride but they expended plenty of energy on smoking and drinking, at their own parties or at other peoples. I am sure they had a wonderful time and it killed both of them, leaving behind a gang of rather sober descendants.
LeeAnn Rimes. No it doesn't.
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I remember back in the late 1970's when I worked for a lady with emphysema who had an oxygen tank by her bed at home. And she still smoked. And drank. A lot.
"I have had singing."
In real life, unless there was oxygen in use in the room, patients smoked in hospital rooms also.
shareherfancy, back then they had "cocktail" dresses, special outfits to drink in! Is that term still used? My late mother, 6 years younger than Gene, was her exact double, even down to the slight overbite. She was a beautiful woman, had alot of that kind of clothing. Me, I'm dressing up when I get a new pair of jeans and put on clean sneakers. My mom loved me anyway.
shareAt least here they drink for the sake of drinking. In other movies of the period, they seem to find lots of excuses to drink. To kill pain, to stimulate someone, to poison someone, because someone dropped a hat...
Don't you love the way the cop drinks on duty before noon?
Side note, I believe Dana Andrews became a pretty hopeless alcoholic later in life.
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Think cynical thoughts.
Good point, bron-tay. I'm afraid I've seen the movie so many times, that I'm somewhat oblivious to that being inappropriate! I guess, subconsciously, I just chalk it up, though, to being part of that era.
shareAt the risk of commenting before checking my facts, while you're correct that Dana Andrews was an alcoholic, I am pretty sure he got sober well before he died, and was, I believe, was an outspoken advocate of AA and/or whatever recovery was available back then. I seem to remember something I read, or a voice recording of him saying how it saved his life (or, since he is deceased, kept him from dying a much earlier death).
I only wanted to comment because of the "hopeless" in your post. I am fairly certain he did very well in recovery.
"Shake the hand that shook the hand
Of P. T. Barnum....and Charlie Chan!"
Well, it certainly is now and was before the whole "american dream" business started, what makes you think those were special times?
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Applied Science? All science is applied. Eventually.
Yes, they did drink a lot. Do you know what else they did a lot? They smoked a lot.
Do you know what else they did a lot? Survived the Great Depression as young men and women and then go on to beat the Nazis and Japanese while going without due to rationing. Do you know what else they did? They came home and made the U.S. economy the best in the world. Then, they proceeded to raise a generation of whinebags in a land of prosperity that wanted to air their dirty laundry on Oprah and talk incessantly about their feelings to their gurus and whatnots. This entitlement generation proceeded to screw up the next generation and so on and so on . . .
So, I raise my highball glass to the Greatest Generation and smoke my cigarettes while they are still legal because the pantywastes are here to stay – created by a land of plenty that was created by the greatest generation that liked a nip from time to time. God bless you, Greatest Generation.
"Psychos do not explode when sun light hits them, I don't give a *beep* how crazy they are!"
God bless you, Greatest Generation.I'll drink to that!
They only drank two days a week. Weekdays and weekends!
They used to "get gased up"
Have a snootfull
Sh!t faced
Paralyzed
Baked
Blasted
Blottoed
Drunk as a skunk
And many more.
My father used to say "he got on the piss"!
Those were the days when people would avoid the tea totalers.
What on Earth is the Greatest Generation? There is no such thing. All generations have their good points and bad points.
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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen
Do you know what else they did? Put Japanese-Americans in interment camps
shareYes, they did, both drinking and smoking, if they could really afford it. Hollywood often mirrored itself and the stories of all the lushes in Hollywood are legendary. Important people showing up half-bonked on the set and everyone having to deal with it are typical.
Most regular folks saw having a drink as part of everyday living, and usually kept a bottle or two of the "good stuff" for guests, while they drank the lesser stuff themselves daily or every so often. There were also many more drunk driver then as well, and it was generally tolerated. sad to say. I remember my folks having bottles of liquor in a locked cabinet just for guests. In our home now, we have had the same gifted bottle of whiskey for 10 years now that is still half full and we never offer hard drinks to visitors.
For smoking, that was almost a rite of passage into adulthood then. I worked in a bowling alley in high school behind the pin machines, and on Fri and Sat nights, I could barely see the bowlers from there due to all the smoke in the place. Then when they left, we had tons of beer bottles to clean up.
My grandfather died of emphysema from smoking, and my mother had throat cancer from it. My stepdad was an alcoholic and had more than one single car accidents while driving drunk. He was lucky to never have hurt anyone, but one time he tried to hit my mother while drunk, and I and my brother chased him out of town (sounds like the old west), and we never saw him again. Thank gosh it isn't quite like that anymore!
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The Eyes of the City are Mine! Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)
Motion pictures of the time were underwritten by the alcohol and tobacco industries. So it was over-represented.
But, yes, alcoholism used to be more of a problem --- until just the last two or three of decades in fact. And, obviously, smoking was: barely 20 years ago, you could smoke at your work desk (unthinkable today).
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I don't think that was really the case in motion pictures, the studios backed their productions without too much in the way of outside cash or influences.
But it was certainly very true in TV production.
Product placement in films is a relatively new mode of operation, or at least since the 1970s. The first real product placement I ever heard about was when Joan Crawford insisted Coke be the drink of choice in her movies made in the 1960s because she was married to that Coca Cola bigwig.
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The Eyes of the City are Mine! Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)
Sorry rixrex, right idea, wrong cola. Mommy Dearest sat on the board of directors (chairman?) of Pepsi from '59-'73. Make another mistake like that and I'll take a hanger to you. Peace...
shareMy dad worked fir the Alcohol and Drug Commission in the 70's. Three martini lunches were common, and everybody smoked everywhere. You could smoke in restaurants, theatres, pretty much any place. When I look at pictures of parties back in the day, all the neighbors have a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other.
share