Up in Smoke
***/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B
starring Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Tom Skerritt, Stacy Keach
screenplay by Tommy Chong & Cheech Marin
directed by Lou Adler
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Two things are remarkable about Up in Smoke when considering it in retrospect. The first is that, unlike the attack-and-kill self-righteousness of most comedians, screenwriters/stars Cheech and Chong are quiet, gentle, and completely uninterested in anything except feeling good and doing next to nothing. The second is that despite its formless narrative, confused direction, and total refusal to acknowledge solid aesthetic principles, Up in Smoke is a real movie, albeit barely. Though I once begrudgingly admired the duo's Nice Dreams in these pages, that was because it struck me as a bizarrely compelling mess–not necessarily a roaring endorsement. By contrast, this thing–their fabled big-screen debut, and a summit they would sadly never surpass–is consistently funny, surprisingly well-timed, and possessed of a devastating performance by Stacy Keach, and it doesn't blow it all by tacking on a sickly moral or engaging in mean-spirited shenanigans. All of which is more than I can say for a lot of comedies with higher levels of self-importance.
It goes without saying that Cheech and Chong engage in what used to be called "drug humour" to the nth degree–one has to examine the content of that single-minded obsession and how sweetly generous it seems. The heroes, Pedro (Cheech) and "Man" (Chong), are interested in little more than smoking pot. They barely know each other; Pedro picked up Man hitchhiking (while improbably assuming the latter was gorgeous and female), whereupon the two just sort of decided they'd hang out and take drugs. They're arrested, they're released, they look to score from a 'Nam vet dealer named Strawberry (Tom Skerritt), they narrowly avoid a raid… Eventually, they earn the ire of forlornly square cop Sgt. Stedenko (Keach) and procure a van made, unbeknownst to them, entirely of marijuana resin. There is no objective, other than to elude an objective.
The film is ultimately about two guys who simply want to enjoy drugs and each other's company. That's it. No soapbox, no cruel hazing, no schoolyard bullying, nada. None of this makes Up in Smoke especially profound, but the shambling aimlessness, coupled with a complete lack of hostility, results in something both unusual and strangely warm. The occasional tired bits (a group of nuns who enjoy a frisking) and out-of-character mean jabs (a female judge named Gladys Dykes) underscore the long stretches of Pedro and Man talking drugs and gibberish to the greater glory of nothing whatsoever. Nobody's to blame for anything; even the thoroughly unpleasant Sgt. Stedenko–given infinite amounts of poignancy by Keach's all-in portrayal–is characterized as less a monstrous villain than a deluded sap who might have way more fun if he could stop being such a pill.
Of course, for this to mean anything the film has to actually be funny, and with the copious amounts of pot and slob humour Up in Smoke could very easily have been intolerable. But for all their non-approach, Cheech and Chong prove to have a certain amount of self-awareness. I can think of few things more boring than a sanctimonious drug person extolling some substance's alleged 'spiritual' qualities, unless it's a stoner cracking up over something that's only funny to the inebriated–and yet the pair manages to sidestep these pitfalls by acknowledging the ridiculousness of people when they're high. Totally without vanity, they satirize themselves as completely unaware of the hopeless vibe they give off: instead of placing themselves on a heroic pedestal, they level the playing field. While Up in Smoke really isn't earth-shaking cinema, it's way better than one had any right to expect, and genuinely satisfying as the leisurely tonic it sets out to be.
Paramount reissues Up in Smoke on DVD in a Special Collector's Edition whose 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is kicked up a hair too much in the colour department: the already bright palette practically singes the eyebrows now and again, though it's not oversaturated enough to affect fine detail. The accompanying Dolby 5.1 remix isn't terribly articulate, but there is some kick to it. Extras begin with a commentary from Cheech Marin and director Lou Adler. No big shocks here (when they note that they missed getting a close-up, that was largely due to their obliviousness to the concept) and no big revelations either beyond what the locations are like now and various anecdotes involving Jack Nicholson. A couple of bits do resonate, such as how out of it the participants truly were and how much was lifted from the boys' stand-up act. Meanwhile, eight "roach clips" (deleted scenes to you) are far more interesting than the average: a few good random gags are unearthed, as are Harry Dean Stanton's lost scenes as a jail guard trying to sell "red birds" to the boys. Best of all? Two sublime sequences featuring Sgt. Stedenko. One has him attempting to get an explanation of the munchies from his throbbingly inept subordinates, while the other finds him quite unironically calling all cars to surround "momma's bedroom." I defy you to keep a straight face. Each elision includes (sparse) optional commentary by Adler.
"Lighting it Up: A Look Back at Up in Smoke" (9 mins.) is a brief run-through of the events leading up to the movie, with Chong and Marin vaguely discussing their origin story first as comedians, then as the authors of chart-topping comedy albums that somehow, without any apparent effort, produced a movie. Great reflection this is not, but it has one very interesting moment where Chong describes the process that yielded one of their more famous sketches. Speaking of which, "Earache My Eye" (5 mins.) takes the immortal song with the chunky riff and slaps a cheaply CGI'd Cheech and Chong onto it. The clip is hideously ugly, compounding this by incorporating the sketch part with Chong's dad (here improbably played by a digital Keach) and making literal what should've remained an audio-only suggestion. "Cheech and Chong's The Man Song" (2 mins.) appears to be every single instance of somebody in the movie saying "man;" two radio spots, Up in Smoke's trailer, and a trailer for Blades of Glory round out the disc.
85 minutes; R; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0 (Stereo), French DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, French subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Paramount
