Dear LPG,

Can you remember when in all films, TV dramas and soap operas, where the hero or heroine needed to look ‘cool’ featured them smoking a cigarette or cigar?  You don’t have to be an actor to know that they need props, and many props are used but in spite of the information that was becoming evident in the late 1960s the cigarette was one of the ways that actors managed to find something to do while they delivered their lines. 

And then came the swap-around.  Smoking was bad and those little white cylinders of tobacco and illness were swapped for the mobile phone. 

Many of us watched all manner of stories, which were told on film in those days.  We were all there some of the time, but did you notice how things gradually began to change and the mobile phone slowly became the prop of choice. 

While we cannot discount the gun as the original, age old usable hand-held prop in films, can anyone remember when the hero would have a brick sized phone that he could use while being driven around in a car?  Back in the mid 1960’s Captain James T Kirk of the Enterprise did a lot of beaming up with his flip up phone-like communicator before it became a badge on his chest, while 007 listed one amongst his special gadgets in the 1997 film ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’.  As in real life they have gradually shrunk and it was also interesting that they have stopped just being a prop and so many bits of film and drama storylines are now told quickly with a few lines said to a mobile.

Perhaps what I am really trying to say is that in my opinion, what actors do on screen has always been one of the influences of our young ones, as those actions did on us elders when we were young, so it is no wonder that so many now depend on a mobile phone.

If I live long enough it will be interesting to see what the next big fad will be…

UR, Catford

LPG found some information for you

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