I can think of two great close-up shots of actors smoking:
Roy Schnieder, Jaws: While chumming, the shark nearly takes off his arm. CLOSE UP W/SMOKE. He backs into the cabin and says, “We need a bigger boat.”
Dan Akroyd, Ghostbusters: He sees the green glob ghost. CLOSE UP W/ SMOKE. He stares, mouth agape, and the cigarette sticks to his lower lip.
Others?
Ghostbusters scene is my favorite, but how about the first strip scene in The Full Monty? Where the main character (can’t remember his name) is stripping in front of the car and forgets to take his smoke out of his mouth when he takes off his sweatshirt. Very funny scene.
Sharon Stone. Basic Instinct. Her bod was smokin, too.
I can seem to remember many television characters smoking. Did the father on “Leave it its beaver” smoke? How about Lou Grant (My Darling) smoke cigars on “Mary Tyler Moore” He looks like he would be a cigar daddy anyway.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Kevin Spacey trying to light a cigarette in the Usual Suspects. He fumbles with the lighter until Chazz Palminteri’s character gets frustrated and lights it for him. It’s even better once you’ve seen the end of the movie and you know he’s faking the whole thing.
VALERIE! Now anyone who HASN’T seen it knows the ending! Eh, well, anyone who hasn’t seen it by this time deserved it.
The first shot of Leo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet, as he’s writing in his journal and takes one long drag. So very cool. Even if it IS Leo.
Well, THE classic smoking scene is Paul Henried lighting two cigarettes and handing one to Bette Davis in “Now, Voyager.”
Shall I start a Great Debate about current teen idols smoking in their films and influencing fans? I can hardly blame pre-1960 stars for puffing away, but what about people like Winona Ryder, who seems to smoke in every scene she’s in? Does she have a moral responsibility to her fans, who are at a very “monkey-see, monkey-do” age?
In The Graduate: Anne Bancroft takes a long drag on a cigarette. Dustin Hoffman makes an ineffectual attempt at a kiss. Anne Bancroft cooly exhales smoke.
DHR
Anytime Clint Eastwood lights up one of those cheroots in a spaghetti western…
Its like his mouth was designed perfectly for those…nobody should be that cool looking with a smoke in his mouth.
In “The Maltese Falcon” (my all-time favorite movie) Effie (Sam Spade’s secretary) sits on the corner of his desk as they’re talking about Ms. Wonderly (who’s real name is Bridget O’Shaughnessy)and rolls him a cigarette. He takes it from her and lights if from a container holding a bunch of matches. I wonder if my secretary would roll me a cigarette if I smoked?
Also, Bogart and Bacall in To Have and Have Not. They ask each other for a light and end up having the “You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.” scene. Bogie leans back on the bed, burning cig in his hand, and whistles as he watches Bacall walk out of his door. Too bad all the smoking gave him cancer of the esophogus and killed him.
Of course theres the Smoking Man in the X-Files.
Or, how about DeNiro in Cape Fear. He sits in the movie theater with a huge stogie puffing away.
And, not really a movie smoker, but…Andrew Dice Clay’s
arm around the head move was pretty nifty.
Breathless, the original, B/W version. Jean-Paul Belmondo gets shot, falls down, and smoke just billows out of his mouth.