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Nominations for Best Pipe Movie?
I'm nominating "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. Must be a pipe in almost every scene. Half the cast smokes pipes at one time or another through the movie!
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We will delve into the modern world of the pipe culture, explore the historical journey of the tobacco pipe and show the making of a pipe from harvesting briar in Italy to a finished pipe made by a craftsman in a remote corner of upper Michigan. Through interviews, narration, and cinematic imagery we will explore the timeless and transcendant nature of pipes.
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And here it is, in "Connecticut", brand spankin' new in 1947:
I've been laser-focused on the appearance of pipe smokers in movies while I watch films and started jotting them down in a notebook. And as is my normal viewing habits I'm a regular horror flick aficionado. So the bulk of my viewing are films of that ilk. And one can't help but take note of the evolution of violence in movies ... horror films in particular. And for someone like me it doesn't matter. I've become so desensitized by disemboweling, decapitation, and cannibalism I can eat a plate of spaghetti while watching without a single wretch. And since I'm retired, with a lot of free time on my hands thought I'd see what movie reviewers had to say about movie violence back in the 40s', 50s' and 60s' and discovered this interesting - and now, somewhat comical critics reaction to the movies of his time. It was written by prominent film critic Herbert Kretzmer pertaining to the state of horror films as he saw it back in 1957, making a public appeal to censors, demanding that they crack down on horror films.
"Film studios within screaming distance of London are echoing every day with the tortured cries of bosomy girls as they flee from demented one-eyed creatures and dame crazed monsters. They are cheap and nasty pictures, made on a shoe-string. Made for morons. The formula is unalterable. Crude sadism laced with leering sex. Sin and sensation lope hand in hand down the horror trail in "Man Without A Body", "Half Human", "The Giant Claw", "Blood Of The Vampire", and "The Woman Eater"
This poor fellow would have an Honest God conniption fit if he were around to see that category of films we now refer to as 'torture porn' with films like the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchise, "Turista", "Wolf Creek", "Inside", "Frontier(s)", the Friday The 13th, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers movies ... and Heaven forbid those "Human Centipede" flicks that I can't even stomach.
But come on, films like "The Giant Claw" with it's silly looking flying bird puppet that makes the Japanese Godzilla films look like cinematic special effects masterpieces. Or the ridiculous looking plant-like Triffid wanabe in "The Woman Eater". And "Half Human" ... a movie about the abominable snowman? You gotta be kidding me. He wrote his plea to censors even before Hammer Studios was began remaking the Universal Horror classics like their Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Mummy series but with a dash of Hammer panache ... blood, sex, and graphic violence (at least graphic for the 60s'.)
Times sure have changed. And the movies that once outranged society are now looked upon as nostalgic poppycock. And maybe in 30 years we'll view the graphic 'torture porn' films of today as we do the Roger Corman/Vincent Price A.I.P. Edgar Allen Poe movies made in the 60s'.