New US film regulations could secure the end of 007 smoking

That old cinema moment when, at a point of heightened tension and to the sound of rousing orchestral music, the star reaches for a packet of cigarettes, lights up, then exhales with an expression of deep satisfaction may be heading for the cutting room floor. The American board in charge of film ratings has announced that smoking will now be considered alongside sex, violence and bad language - reports the Guardian.

The relationship between Hollywood and the smouldering cigarette is a long and, critics say, unsavoury one. From Sean Connery's portrail of James Bond through to the cigar-puffing newspaper editor in the newly-released Spider-Man 3, images of smoking have never been far from the big screen.

Now the Motion Picture Association of America, which both promotes Hollywood movies as well as overseeing their classification, has tightened the rules. Up to now only films showing illegal smoking by teenagers have been rated, but now all smoking will come under the auspices of the 12-parent classification board.

The association said that three questions will now be asked: is smoking pervasive in the film, does it glamorise the act, and is there a historic or other mitigating context?

The third question would exempt, for example, George Clooney's recent film Good Night, and Good Luck, which depicted the cigarette-toting broadcaster Edward Murrow in historically-accurate fashion. The new rules will also stop short of being retroactive, so that Casablanca's "approved" rating would be untouched, despite Bogart's fondness for a puff.

The move comes after intense lobbying. The Harvard School of Public Health, one of the first research bodies to identify the damage caused by passive smoking, has been pressuring studios since 1999 to remove images from youth-rated movies.

Last year the MPAA asked the school to advise it on movies' impact on smoking behaviour and in February Harvard made a presentation in which it pointed out that in 2005 66% of the top 50 grossing films contained smoking, including 68% of all films rated PG-13, the age at which, on average, Americans take up the habit.

"Imagine a 13-year-old child watching PG-13 films, and being bombarded 14 times per hour with powerfully seductive images of smoking by their favourite stars," Jay Winsten, the Harvard school's associate dean, said.

Even more forceful pressure has come from groups such as the American Lung Association of Sacramento which runs a database of all recent films and classes them as "black lung" or "pink lung", according to their depictions.

Its website uses shock tactics, claiming in an introductory video that more than 1,000 American teenagers start smoking every day because of what they have seen in movies or on television, and of those 340 will die from tobacco-related diseases.

Ellen Vargyas - a lawyer for another leading advocate of tougher ratings, the American Legacy Foundation - said the new system did not go far enough. "There's really no commitment to do anything. All they are proposing is that a panel looks at the movies to see if smoking is shown and how it is depicted, but what they then do is completely discretionary."

The Alf and other groups want to see an R rating - which stops children under 17 seeing movies unless a parent is present - automatically applied to any film containing images of tobacco consumption. Anti-smoking adverts would also have to be shown immediately before the movie's screening.

In its defence, the MPAA points out that the worst excesses of tobacco companies paying for their wares to be planted in movies have been curbed by prohibitions in place since 1998. Instances prior to this include the $350,000 (£175,000) paid to producers of Licence to Kill for James Bond to be seen smoking Larks, or the $40,000 Philip Morris paid for Lois Lane to drag on Marlboros in Superman II.

The MPAA adds that over the last two years even the slightest glimpse of smoking in films has fallen from 60% to 52% of releases, and of those 75% had already been rated R for reasons of violence, sex or language.

Dan Glickman, the association's chairman, recognised that critics had called for a mandatory R rating on all films containing smoking, but warned that "the debate on this extreme proposal has become heavily politicised, and many inaccurate statements have been made".

With passions running high even for the emotion-rich movie business, the new rating system is unlikely to be the end of the story. Expect further dramatic moments, though maybe not this time accompanied by a soothing cigarette.

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