3 or 4 times before he smokes a cigarette, his girlfriend takes it out of
his mouth as if he were putting the wrong end in. Since there were no
cigarette filters in 1945, why did she do this?
Many cigarette brands, although filterless, were "tipped." That is, one end had heavier paper; usually brown paper. Watch closely toward the end; the last one she reverses for him you can see the quarter to half inch of darker paper quite clearly. Kool "regular" had such a tip; I smoked many packs of them before they went off the market about 20 years ago. They were short, and filterless (like Camel) but had about a quarter inch of heavier brown paper at one end.
shareMy husband just commented on that!
shareWilder used re-orienting of the cigarette as a device to illustrate Birnham's repressed homosexuality. The girlfriend continuously tried to correct his orientation. It was clearer in the novel but due to the censors of the time, Wilder had to use the cigarette bit to hint at his closeted homosexuality.
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