This is driving me crazy because I cant find a answer !!! so maybe someone here who is a movie/beer aficionado can help ?
I had a idle period the other day and was watching TCM and caught part of a movie called Period of Adjustment (Timothy Hutton and Jane Fonda,Tony Franciosa) in this movie there were multiple scenes where they were drinking beer in this case it was Miller High Life and Pabst Blue Ribbon unless I'm crazy (could be) in every scene the beer cans were upside down !! at first I thought ok blooper, that may explain 1 scene but this was every scene with beer !! I tried researching this to see if there was a law or some movie code or requirement but could not find ANYTHING !! it's bugging me, so I'm reaching out to the Oldsmobile loving, beer drinking movie loving crowd WHY WERE THE BEER CANS UPSIDE DOWN ???? There are multiple trailers etc... available on You Tube and other web sources to review.
Period Of Adjustment. as I mentioned it's not just one scene it's every scene with a beer in it.
P/S the movie was made in 1962

 

Interesting. No idea why, but probably has to do with Standards and Practices of the day, to obscure the names of the product.

By the way, Its Jim Hutton, not Timothy(Jim's son)

 

Maybe a nonsensical reference to bottoms up or they are display cans where they open them from the bottom so as not to disturb the top side.

 

Back in the day you had to open a can of beer with a church key, so you could open it from each side, personally I refuse to watch any movie with Hanoi Jane in it

 

yeah back in the 60's my dad always opened em on the bottom.seemed to be the cleanest side.think i still have a couple old grain belts around opened bottom up.

 

Probably the simplest answer is that it was done so it wasn't a "free advertisement" for the breweries. If you pay close attention in many tv shows and movies, you'll see a food or beverage that you recognize, but when you look really close... the name has been changed ever so slightly. If the props dept was being lazy, instead of changing the name, they just turned the cans upside down.

 

That would be my guess as well. I have an old Budweiser can around here somewhere like that that I pulled out of a lake on July 4th 1976. Probably does have something to do with advertising certain products.
Hanoi Jane will always be Hanoi Jane to me also. Certain actors I will not watch period. She is on that list for me.

 

In my opinion, I think it has to do with the beer company rights. If you show their name brand in a movie without their permission, they can sue you. You have to asked for their permission if you can advertise their name brand in a movie. It really dont have to be beer. It can be Nike t-shirts but you have to spell their name and redesign their logo in a different way so they cannot sue you. This is why when you see somebody wearing a designer t-shirt and it has been blacken out in a video, you dont want that company to have a lawsuit on you. There are times when you see a movie and the actor is pulling out a pack of cigarettes, it doesnt say Marlboro. It has a John Doe name brand.

 

The only time a brand could or would even have grounds to sue is if the product was represented in a significant negative fashion. TV and film producers are smarter than that, though.

It really is about product placement and advertising. You'll see it more in tv shows where something is obscured, name changed, or turned upside down. For movies, particularly larger budget movies, you'll recognize the brands because the producers have solicited product placement fees or some other benefit. I'll point out a huge automotive example: the first live-action Transformers movie. GM used that movie to generate buzz for several models that had not yet been released, such as Bumblebee's Camaro and Jazz's Soltice. Later movies debuted or used concepts for the Corvette and at least one Cadillac model, not to mention using Chevy Sparks, H2's, Topkick/Kodiaks, etc.