#11 Warning: Smoking Can Be Hazardous to Soldiers' Health

Tell me, what else can Lieutenant Richard Widmark offer the dying young Marine, Robert Wagner (his screen debut), in "The Halls of Montezuma" ... but a butt? Think of any one of those cold-war, patriotic, ethnic-microcosm, combat films of the 50's, and you'll recall the iconic scene of the officer or good buddy placing an already-lit cigarette between the stuttering lips of a guttering soldier with his guts falling out. No need to list them; anyway "Halls" (1951) typifies the genre, and was my favorite war-film at the old Avalon Theater (see DM #68ff). The movie brings us not only depth in casting (playing fellow marines alongside Widmark and Wagner are pre-Desire/Waterfront Karl Malden--dead just last week--Richard Boone, Jack Palance--early typecast as "the boxer"--Jack Webb, Martin Milner, and scraggly Neville Brand, fitting his part perfectly, because as a real-life soldier in WWII he came in third among combat medal-winners--Audie Murphy #1, incidentally) ... but also brings psychological depth to the depiction of hyper-stressed men at war. Widmark, for instance, constantly pops pain-pills prescribed by the "Doc" of the cast to alleviate his "migraines."

But to the point: What's the Lieutenant gonna give poor Robert Wagner in his death throes ... one of those headache tablets? Sure, a sip of canteen-water first, but then always the lighted cigarette from one mouth to the other--a kind of manly farewell-kiss between warriors. No other prop will do the trick. Are we about to rob our troops in the field of this great cinematic experience? Not on your life, says Van Gogh's "Skull with Smoking Cigaret." (Full disclosure here: the Blogman's a pipe-smoker) And so also says the Pentagon today, despite commissioning a study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences which came back recommending a smoke-free military.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejects the recommendation, he says, primarily because soldiers in a combat zone [or a movie like "Halls of Montezuma"] are under enough stress already. Well, I should think. "Hey, those people are tryin' to KILL our ass!" On the other hand, Americans really shouldn't be smoking on a foreign battlefield, because they shouldn't be on a foreign battlefield in the first place, dammit! But that's a different color hobble-horse. Anyway, Secretary Gates says he "doesn't want to add to that stress by taking away one of the few outlets they have to relieve it." Worse things can happen on the field of war than second-hand smoke, I understand. But beware of "three-on-a-match."
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