Correx: 9 out of 12 of these dilms with smoking were rated "R," actually. Two of the others weren't originally rated by the MPAA (whose system debuted in 1964) and Annie Hall was PG.

Six of the seven movies you named were rated "R" by the MPAA, so they wouldn't have been affected even if the R-rating for tobacco imagery applied retroactively, which it doesn't. As for nostalgia, Bette Davis and half the top stars in Hollywood (not counting Shirley Temple) had advertising contracts with tobacco companies brokered by their studios.

Good examples of tobacco product placement are American Tobacco's Bull Durham roll-your-owns in The Maltese Falcon and American Tobacco's Lucky Strike in The Clock (1945). After tobacco commercials were axed in 1970, the tobacco companies went back to Hollywood and systematically jacked up smoking on screen while it was declining in real life.

Cleverly done? You bet. Hollywood filmmakers are used to working around commercial demands. But does it really make a better picture? You can't know that until you see what movies are like without tobacco companies calling the shots. If the Health Commissioner, national health groups and and the World Health Organization finally succeed in splitting these twins, we'll all have a chance to find out.