Private Benjamin....smoking

[MidnightCitrus]

I'm just watching Private Benjamin, and i cannot believe all the smoking!! everywhere, the bars, the airports....

did they ever make a sequel?

Just thinking about that movie last weekend!

Don't know about a sequel, but they did make a series which was put on at teatime!

i cant find the tv series, but i love the film.... she is sooo cool

I love that film. Is it on live or a streaming service?

The thing that really got me although I know it's not the same were the wall of payphones in the airport in both Die Hard and Home Alone (I think). You'd be hard pressed to find a payphone now. How times change!

She calls him a "schmuck"
He says "When I met you, you were in the Army, for God's sakes. You were nothing, you were picking up strangers in bars!...I'll give you a future, a home, and a name. For once in your life, don't be stupid!"; she punched him, and responded: "Don't call me stupid!"

I watched, 'The Client', the other day.
They were smoking in the hospital!

@HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime

I love that film. Is it on live or a streaming service?

The thing that really got me although I know it's not the same were the wall of payphones in the airport in both Die Hard and Home Alone (I think). You'd be hard pressed to find a payphone now. How times change!

i have it on dvd

It's the smoking in kids' movies from that era... Original Ghostbusters, for eg.

DH and I play a game called “Dated by Technology and Smoking” when we are watching old films, and there are loads of payphones, or the mobile phone is massive, or there’s loads of smoking etc. In a couple of years it will become “Dated by standing near each other”.

Private Benjamin the movie came out in 1980.
Private Benjamim the TV series ran from 1981 until 1983.

I’m a huge John Wayne fan and the amount of smoking in his movies is crazy. No wonder he ended up with lung cancer.
I’ve just started watching Mad Men and it’s unbelievable how much they all smoke.

(I'm old) when I started work, you were allowed to smoke at your desk at certain times... later, there was a designated smoking room

Possibly outing, but one of my temp jobs I was on reception, and allowed to smoke there!!!

In my first job at 16 i could and did smoke at my desk. My first flight to Spain at 18 and smoked on the plane - whoever thought that was a good idea even then?

In my old job I could smoke in a very small interview room. The person I was interviewing could also smoke , as could the person representing them and any other adult supporting the person being interviewed. Complete fog!
Used to smoke in job cars also.

I remember going to an interview for my first job in 1998 and the interview asking if I minded that it was a non-smoking office. Even then I found it surprising that people could smoke at work. There were one or 2 smokers, but they went outside. One went one the hour, every hour for 5 mins, but skipped lunch.

I remember when patients in hospital could smoke in their beds on the ward!

I wonder if you could smoke in police cars and ambulances? Or in the chamber of the house of commons? What about news readers? Could they smoke while reading the news?

@BikeRunSki

DH and I play a game called “Dated by Technology and Smoking” when we are watching old films, and there are loads of payphones, or the mobile phone is massive, or there’s loads of smoking etc. In a couple of years it will become “Dated by standing near each other”.

I've started to notice how odd it looks when people are standing close to each other on TV.

When I started my first job in the early 90s, my boss was a chain smoker and you literally had to waft the smoke away every time you went into his office to talk to him.

And one of our big bosses had a 'mobile phone'. It looked like an old fashioned desk phone attached to a car battery, which was basically what it was. Plus we had giant 10 inch? floppy disks, that wouldn't even have enough space for a single photograph these days. How things have changed.

@Plops365

In my first job at 16 i could and did smoke at my desk. My first flight to Spain at 18 and smoked on the plane - whoever thought that was a good idea even then?

I remember being asked at check in for a flight on Yugoslav Airlines (that dates me even more than the ubiquitous smoking) if I wanted a smoking or non smoking seat. Got on and LH side was smoking, RH side was non smoking.

Times have changed a lot , and you don't have to go that far back ,when I qualified as a mental health Nurse in 1996 , patients were allowed to smoke in the main day room ,over the years this was gradually discouraged by moving the places they could smoke further and further away untill it became a smoke free trust last year ,.

In my first teaching job in the mid 80s the Head teacher and secretary shared an office and smoked non-stop while children went in and out. the staff room was a fug of smoke. (The Head also kept a wine box in the fridge but that's another story.) My next job was a non-smoking school which was a great relief.

In the 70s and 80s I was nearly always the odd one out for not smoking.

My first job in a hospital, in the main canteen was a room next to it, looked just like a doctors waiting room except it was a smoking room, no doors on it. It ran open plan in to the canteen. I hated having to approach that room to get a doctor or nurse for something.

In Jaws when they are at the hospital, everyone is smoking.
Even when I had my eldest 25 years ago,there was a room for smoking in.

I remember when they allowed smoking on buses. If you had to sit upstairs you would get off and your clothes stunk of smoke. I've never smoked but I remember as a child, my dad used to send me to the shop to get his cigarettes for him. It was totally acceptable then. He used to let me unwrap the cellophane off them and take the little bit of gold paper out of the top of the box. I was a strange child.

When I was little I used to be sent to the shop to buy cigarettes when my Nan was visiting.

My primary school care taker used to smoke in the boiler room/her office. I for some reason was the designated person to find her when someone vomited, with the heat the room was in a constant fog.

My old office building had a smoking room, when it got removed everyone went in to look in disgust at the difference in wall colour when the photos on the wall were taken off. The walls were covered it brown tar.

Watching Peaky Blinders makes me want to start smoking again.

I remember smoking in hospitals - in a dedicated disgusting room. It really wasn’t that long ago either - only early 2000s.