"It Happened On 5th Avenue" is a Christmas themed movie about a bum who sneaks into the unoccupied home of the second riches man in America each year during the winter season when the billionaire moves to his winter home in the South to escape the cold weather. The bum has been doing this for years. But on this occasion he discovers a homeless vet who returned from WWII sleeping on a park bench and invites him to move in with him. As with most screwball comedies of the 40s' things get complicated and before you know it the place has several families moving in as well. This eventually includes the billionaire's daughter who has run away from Boarding School and plans to seek refuge in the house. She is mistaken as a thief - but eventually allowed to stay with the other squatters. She chooses to remains incognito and doesn't let anyone know she is the daughter of the billionaire industrialist ... and this is actually her home. Her father eventually tracks her down and learns his home has become a refuge for all these squatters. But at his daughter's insistence he keeps his identity a secret and simply joins the group as another homeless squatter, adding to the madcap comedy.
Now to the real reason I've mentioned this movie in a thread about fictional pipe smokers. Throughout the movie the billionaire can be seen smoking a pipe. And what type of pipe would you expect a billionaire to smoke? An expensive Dunhill? Nope! The pipe he smokes is a common corn cob. Probably the cheapest pipe in the world - yet the second riches man in America selected a corn cob pipe over an expensive briar. So for all you cob smokers out there take heart.
@mapletop Most people who know me are aware that I'm a real horror and sci-fi film freak. A have a few thousand DVD & Blu-Rays to attest to that. But what they don't know is I'm just as fond of those 30s' & 40s' screwball comedies. Flicks like "It Happened On 5th Avenue", "Bringing Up Baby", "The Man Who Came To Dinner", "Harvey", and "Christmas In Connecticut", just to name a few. You're just as apt to catch me watching a W.C Fields, Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, or even Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin flick as a horror flick. Anyone walking past my house when I'm watching a movie will either hear me laughing or someone screaming bloody murder while getting gutted with a chainsaw.
BILLIONS OF BLISTERING BLUE BILIOUS BARNACLES IN TEN THOUSAND THUNDERING TYPHOONS! Captain Haddock from the books, comics, animated shows, and movies of Tintin. Not the most famous of pipe smoking fictional characters, but he loves his pipe and its a shame that in the new movie, they took it away for political correctness. Anyway, Capt. Haddock is a first rate pipe smoking sea captain, he says the funniest insults and exclamatory remarks; definitely makes my top 3 list for favorite fictional pipe smokers.
My childhood storybook had a story I loved called Little Black Sambo. When I bought the same book, years later, for our sons when they were little, I found that the story -- and only that story -- had disappeared.
Tigers turning into maple syrup were a bridge too far.
@DerekJ I'm a big Captain Haddock fan. Granted, I'm more familiar with him in the Tintin 90's cartoon, but he had his pipe in it. He served as one of the inspirations for one of my tattoos. He's a great character.
@motie2 My grandmother used to read to us from a tome of a book of fairy tails (probably published in the thirties) that contained that story and my brother and I loved it.
Suffice to say, if anybody published that story now; I shudder to think about the response.
I discovered the Inspected Littlejohn detective series by George Bellairs a couple of months ago and have now read nine of the books. The books take place in England, France and Isle of Man in the years following WWII. No brand names are given, but the Inspector is said to be filling and lighting his pipe in most chapters, as are many of the other characters.
Another good t.v. show that has pipe smoking is Foyle's War. Set in England during WWII, there is quite a bit of pipe smoking.
Two of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous characters were pipe smokers ... both Holmes and Professor Challenger from "The Lost World" classic novel, as well as several other books Doyle wrote featuring the Professor.
I’m not sure “fictional” pipe smoker is accurate, as Lee did smoke pipes. Lee Van Cleef’s character “Travis” in the movie “Barquero”. I love his black powder percussion rifle with the tiger maple stock too, beautiful. I think he is either smoking a Peterson or a WDC.
Comments
"It Happened On 5th Avenue" is a Christmas themed movie about a bum who sneaks into the unoccupied home of the second riches man in America each year during the winter season when the billionaire moves to his winter home in the South to escape the cold weather. The bum has been doing this for years. But on this occasion he discovers a homeless vet who returned from WWII sleeping on a park bench and invites him to move in with him. As with most screwball comedies of the 40s' things get complicated and before you know it the place has several families moving in as well. This eventually includes the billionaire's daughter who has run away from Boarding School and plans to seek refuge in the house. She is mistaken as a thief - but eventually allowed to stay with the other squatters. She chooses to remains incognito and doesn't let anyone know she is the daughter of the billionaire industrialist ... and this is actually her home. Her father eventually tracks her down and learns his home has become a refuge for all these squatters. But at his daughter's insistence he keeps his identity a secret and simply joins the group as another homeless squatter, adding to the madcap comedy.
Now to the real reason I've mentioned this movie in a thread about fictional pipe smokers. Throughout the movie the billionaire can be seen smoking a pipe. And what type of pipe would you expect a billionaire to smoke? An expensive Dunhill? Nope! The pipe he smokes is a common corn cob. Probably the cheapest pipe in the world - yet the second riches man in America selected a corn cob pipe over an expensive briar. So for all you cob smokers out there take heart.
Captain Haddock from the books, comics, animated shows, and movies of Tintin. Not the most famous of pipe smoking fictional characters, but he loves his pipe and its a shame that in the new movie, they took it away for political correctness. Anyway, Capt. Haddock is a first rate pipe smoking sea captain, he says the funniest insults and exclamatory remarks; definitely makes my top 3 list for favorite fictional pipe smokers.
Tigers turning into maple syrup were a bridge too far.
Ahhhhh, censorship.......
Another good t.v. show that has pipe smoking is Foyle's War. Set in England during WWII, there is quite a bit of pipe smoking.
Gandalf...
That is one sweet rifle! Lee Van Cleef was in several western movies and smoked his pipe in most of them.
Basil Rathbone was the one that introduced me to Holmes, but Jeremy Britt was the best!