View source for Death in the West

{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2017}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Death in the West
| director       = Martin Smith
| producer       = 
| image          =
| writer         = 
| starring       = 
| distributor    =
| released       = 1976
| runtime        = 32 minutes
| country        = United Kingdom
| language       = English
| budget         =
| gross          =
}}

'''''Death in the West''''' is a 1976 [[documentary film]] directed by Martin Smith,<ref name=contd>{{cite web |url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1996/03/shoot-out-marlboro-country-contd |title=Shoot-Out in Marlboro Country (cont'd) |last1=Hochschild |first1=Adam |date=January 1979 |work=[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]] |publisher= |accessdate=2 June 2013}}</ref> which is believed to contain the first recorded admission from a [[Tobacco industry|tobacco company]] representative that [[smoking]] causes health problems.

It was filmed by reporter [[Peter Taylor (journalist)|Peter Taylor]] alongside a team from the United Kingdom current affairs program ''[[This Week (ITV TV series)|This Week]].'' The film aired only once in the UK, from London in September 1976 on [[Thames Television]], to an audience of approximately 12 million viewers, before a court order was obtained preventing it from being re-aired.<ref name=contd/>

==Content==
The film is composed of three different kinds of footage: old [[Marlboro (cigarette)|Marlboro]] commercials, interviews with two [[Altria|Philip Morris]] executives, and interviews with six American [[cowboy]]s who have either [[lung cancer]] or emphysema, alongside testimony from physicians that the conditions were caused by heavy [[cigarette]] use.<ref name=contd/>

The film interviews James Bowling, senior vice president and director of corporate affairs for Philip Morris, as well as Helmut Wakeham, vice-president for the company's USA science and technology department.<ref name=contd/> The interview with Wakeham is believed to be the first recorded admission from a tobacco company representative that smoking causes health problems.<ref name=glasgow>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19820511&id=3_A9AAAAIBAJ&sjid=5EgMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4909,1826559 |title='Death in the West' to be resurrected |page=6 |date=May 11, 1982 |work=[[The Herald (Glasgow)|The Herald]] |publisher= |accessdate=2 June 2014}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Yeah, cigarettes are [...] So what are we to do, stop living?  The best way to avoid dying is not to be born you know. And if one avoided doing all the things which are alleged to be harmful to people these days we would vegetate in a mountain cave. |Helmut Wakeham ([[Philip Morris USA]]) responding to being questioned if cigarettes are unhealthy}}

Wakeham was also criticised for comparing the [[Health effects of tobacco|ill-effects of smoking]] to overconsumption of [[apple sauce]].<ref name=contd/>

==Lawsuit==
Shortly after the film aired, [[Philip Morris USA|Philip Morris]] sued Thames Television, successfully obtaining a court order to prevent the film from being shown until its suit could be heard and preventing the filmmakers from publicly discussing the film. Philip Morris' suit accused Thames of both deception and breach of copyright, stating the firm was "sandbagged and double-crossed" into allowing Marlboro commercials to be used in the film, as they thought the film would depict cigarettes in a more favourable manner. Both ''[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]]'' magazine and ''[[The Herald (Glasgow)|The Glasgow Herald]]'' doubted this claim, since Peter Taylor had previously made three films for British television which portrayed cigarette use in a negative manner.<ref name=contd/><ref name=glasgow/> Philip Morris also spent "considerable money" in an attempt to prove the six individuals in the film were not genuine cowboys.<ref name=contd/>

{{blockquote|"They sent a couple of lawyers from [[Kansas City metropolitan area|Kansas City]] to see me. They just showed up on my doorstep [...] They wanted to prove that maybe other things than cigarettes had caused my emphysema. They were very sly in their questions. [...] They wanted to know how long I had been in the cattle business, was it my vocation or avocation? I've had this ranch 20 years, but they tried to make a big thing of the fact that some of that time I was also teaching school."|John Holmes, cowboy who was interviewed in the film<ref name=contd/>}}

[[Palmer Williams]], then senior producer for ''[[60 Minutes]]'' in the US, had expressed interest in airing part of the documentary, and the [[American Cancer Society]] had plans to use the film in their anti-smoking campaigns. The court order, however, prevented Thames from selling them the film.<ref name=contd/>

Philip Morris stated they would settle out of court, if Thames returned all the footage of the commercials and Phillip Morris employees, thereby effectively destroying the majority of the film.<ref name=contd/> Although Thames' chances of winning the lawsuit were described as good,<ref name=contd/> the filmmakers did not mount a lawsuit to recover the film, as a defense was estimated to cost [[Pound sterling|£]]100,000, far greater than the amount of money the company could make by recovering and selling the film.<ref name=glasgow/> Thames eventually settled out of court, signing a confidential agreement that stated they would destroy all their copies of the film.<ref name=glasgow/> In January 1979, the original film was reported to be sealed in a London court vault.<ref name=contd/><ref name=mother/>

==Aftermath==
By January 1979, four of the six cowboys interviewed in the film had died;<ref name=contd/><ref name=mother>{{cite web |url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1996/03/shoot-out-marlboro-country |title=Shoot-Out in Marlboro Country |last1=Hochschild |first1=Adam |date=January 1979 |website=[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]] |publisher= |accessdate=2 June 2013}}</ref> only one was still alive in 1982.<ref name=glasgow/> James Bowling would himself die of pancreatic cancer in 1997.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1997-06-27|title=James Bowling, 69, a Supporter of the Arts|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/27/arts/james-bowling-69-a-supporter-of-the-arts.html|access-date=2021-08-26|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

Despite Thames' having agreed to destroy all copies of the film, both the film and photocopies of the confidential agreement leaked out.<ref name=glasgow/> Dr [[Stanton Glantz]] of the [[University of California]] obtained an unlicensed copy, which he screened at a public seminar in May 1982.<ref name=glasgow/> He also gave a copy to San Francisco TV station [[KRON-TV]], which also aired it that month.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jzg22e00/pdf |title=Urgent Confidential |date=12 May 1982 |work=[[Legacy Tobacco Documents Library]] |publisher= |accessdate=2 June 2014}}</ref> The film was also shown twice during the penultimate weekend of January 1983 on Chicago's [[WTTW]] as an installment of ''[[Image Union]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Deeb |first=Gary |date=January 20, 1983 |title=Public TV smokes out challenging 'Death in the West' |url=https://mediaburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/public-tv-smokes-out-challenging-death-in-the-west.pdf |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |access-date=April 24, 2022}}</ref>

==Notes and references==
{{Reflist}}

== See also ==
* [[Marlboro Man]]

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|2225867|Death in the West}}
* [https://archive.org/details/DeathInTheWestFull Death in the West] at the [[Internet Archive]]
* [https://archive.org/details/tobacco_goo23e00 NBC Monitor coverage of "Death in the West"] at the [[Internet Archive]]
* [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/goo23e00 NBC Monitor coverage of "Death in the West"] at the [[UCSF]] archive, the [[Legacy Tobacco Documents Library]]

{{Portal bar|Television|Film|Journalism|United Kingdom}}

[[Category:British television documentaries]]
[[Category:Documentary films about advertising]]
[[Category:Tobacco advertising]]
[[Category:Television controversies in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Documentary films about cancer]]