Where There’s Smoke

James Bond’s image has included plenty of womanizing, gambling, vodka martinis (“shaken, not stirred”) and other dissipations over the years. But the producers have become a bit nervous about tobacco use, and 007’s latest adventure, “Licence to Kill”--opening Friday--is accompanied by a warning from the Surgeon General. Included in the closing credits: “As tobacco products are used in this film, the Producers wish to remind the audience of the SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: ‘SMOKING CAUSES LUNG CANCER, HEART DISEASE, EMPHYSEMA, AND MAY COMPLICATE PREGNANCY.’ ”

Co-producer (with Albert Broccoli) Michael G. Wilson told us that actor Timothy Dalton, a smoker, has made smoking a Bond trait. Also, one of the film’s many gadgets is a bomb detonator camouflaged as a pack of cigarettes with the brand name Larks. (“In England, a ‘lark’ is a type of joke or prank,” Wilson explained. “Since this was consistent with Bond’s type of humor, we used it.”)

Wilson said the producers added the Surgeon General’s warning because they were aware of American watchdog organizations that monitor the use of products in media, and because Bond may be a role model to some younger people who are a large part of the 007 audience.

Although Sean Connery’s Bond smoked, Roger Moore’s did not, except for a cigar in his first Bond film, “Live and Let Die.”