Leica M3 sighting

My wife watches the TV series, "Pan Am,"--I don't --and said that in Sunday's episode, one of the stewardesses was given what looked like

an M3 as a gift from a friend. Just curious if anyone out there saw it, too.

<p>M3 or M2, I could not tell in the quickness of the unexpected moment. I did see that the self timer was switched on, as the lever was parallel to the lenght of the body. Previous to gifting of the Leica, the woman was using some fixed lens rangefinder with a selenium metercell about the circumference of the lens. I hate to admit I notice such details instead only attending to the pretty girls!</p>

<p>I noticed that self-timer lever too. The prop people on the set obviously didn't know too much about the workings of that camera. I think it was an M3 with a 50/2 'cron, but I only had a fleeting glimpse. (That fixed-lens RF may have been an Agfa. Have to catch the reruns.)</p>

<p>Love the series though. It takes the place of <em>Madmen</em> for me until that show returns. They both perfectly capture the ethos of that era, the early 60s. (My wife loves ogling the women's fashion of those years. I like watching the women!)</p>

<p>Yes but notice on Pan Am there is not everyone smoking, which is not accurate for the time. In the early 60s almost everyone smoked.</p>

<p>That's very true about <em>Pan Am. Madmen</em> is more true to life with all the smoking going on, <em>and </em>drinking. I read where the actors use some sort of non-tobacco vegetable herb cigarettes.</p>

<p>"In the early 60s almost everyone smoked."<br>

Yes.......but it wasn't tobacco!!!!</p>

<p>Smoking . . .yeah, and they could do it on the plane too! What a different world we live in now.</p>

The nanny state gone wild on steroids.

...or perhaps, a kinder, more considerate world?

<p>Not really. It is not the remit of the state to enforce a "kinder, more considerate world." That is the ambit of ordinary citizens acting in accord with civilised social convention. My father, who smoked variously cigars, pipes and cigarettes, would never have dreamed of lighting up in public without asking others if anyone objected. If anyone did, that was the end of it.</p>

<p>I was born in 1938, so I have a very different perspective than the Baby Boomers, Generation X, the John Paul generation. We were drilled in manners, etiquette and deportment, something totally foreign to today's generation.</p>

<p>Political correctness was unneeded because we were taught that it was simply impolite and boorish to make fun of, or call attention, or deride, some other person's appearance, race, beliefs, ethnic heritage, origins, disability, etc. We were taught never to use racial epithets because civilised people just don't do that. My parents would say to me and my siblings, "How would you like it if someone called you so and so?"</p>

<p>Same thing with smoking. My father liked to light up a cigar after dinner with a drink at a restaurant. He would hold up the cigar and motion to the other tables, in effect, saying, "Is it OK?" If anyone scowled or shook their heads, fine, he put the cigar down.</p>

<p>You don't need all this oppressive, suffocating PC nonsense if everyone would just be polite and practise good manners.</p>

<p>Knob rewind, lever rewind selector, self-timer so M3. It looked like 50/2 'cron by the scallops in the lens and size.<br>

The other camera was more interesting. It appeared have a selenium cell around the fixed lens. There was black plastic ridge surrounding the viewfinder and frame iluminator widows. Couldn't tell if it had a rangefinder window. The name was on front in black within the black ridge. It struck me as being anachronistic. Interested to know what it is.</p>

Miles, <p>I started watching the series. We won't be seeing that M3 anymore. The KGB confiscated it, I believe, in last Sunday's episode. Have to watch the reruns to see what that fixed-lens RF was, maybe an Agfa?

<p>"I did see that the self timer was switched on, as the lever was parallel to the lenght of the body."</p>

<p>Some gift! Sounds like it was broken. :-(</p>