Up in Smoke

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Up in Smoke

Directed by	Lou Adler Tommy Chong (uncredited)
Produced by	Lou Adler Lou Lombardo
Written by	Tommy Chong Cheech Marin
Starring	Cheech Marin Tommy Chong Edie Adams Strother Martin Stacy Keach
Music by	Danny 'Kootch' Korchmar Lee Oskar Waddy Wachtel
Cinematography	Gene Polito
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	August 11, 1978 (September 15, 1978)
Running time	86 min.
Country	U.S.
Language	English Spanish
Followed by	Cheech & Chong's Next Movie
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Up in Smoke, directed by Lou Adler, was Cheech and Chong's first feature-length film, released in 1978 by Paramount. It stars Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Edie Adams, Strother Martin and Stacy Keach. Grossing $41,590,893, it was the 12th highest-grossing film of 1978.

Cheech and Chong had been a comedy team for about ten years before they started reworking some of their material for their first film. Much of the film was shot in Los Angeles, California, including scenes set in Mexico. Scenes set on the Mexican border were actually filmed in Yuma.

The team found it difficult to persuade traditional advertising outlets to promote the film, so they came up with the novel (and ultimately successful) idea of advertising it through comic strips, which they left on bus benches. This gave the film a certain "street" feel, helping it to become a cult hit.

1 Plot
2 Soundtrack album
3 Miscellanea
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Tommy Chong plays Anthony Stoner, a jobless hippy who is kicked out of home by his father and manages to trick Pedro (Cheech) into picking him up off the side of a highway by posing as a woman with large breasts. They both share a large spliff (which Chong's character says is made with "labrador", marijuana and dog feces, due to his dog having eaten his stash) and are arrested when a police officer discovers them to be stoned. After their subsequent trial, they are released, and in an attempt to procure some marijuana they visit Strawberry, Pedro's cousin. They narrowly escape a police raid on Strawberry's house, but are soon deported to Tijuana by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, together with Pedro's illegal immigrant relatives (who just want a free ride to a wedding).

In order to get back to the United States, they arrange to pick up a vehicle from Pedro's uncle's upholstery shop, but arrive at the wrong place, a marijuana plant, and end up unknowingly involved in a plot to smuggle a van constructed completely out of spray-on marijuana from Mexico to Los Angeles, with the inept police narcotics unit hot on their heels.

Along the way, Cheech and Chong narrowly avoid arrest despite, at one point, being pulled over by the police (luckily for them, the officer gets high from the smoke coming from their van), and pick up two women, who convince them to perform with their band, Alice Bowie, at a Battle of the Bands contest. The film concludes with Cheech and Chong winning the contest, and a recording contract, with a performance of their song "Earache My Eye".

[edit] Soundtrack album

Cheech and Chong chronology
Up in Smoke

Soundtrack by Cheech and Chong
Genre	Comedy
Label	Warner Bros. Records/ WEA
Sleeping Beauty (1976)	Up in Smoke (1979)	Let's Make a New Dope Deal (1980)

The soundtrack album for Up in Smoke featured music and audio excerpts from the film. The album was originally released in 1979 by Warner Bros. Records. It was released on compact disc in 1991. The original track listing is as follows:

"Finkelstein Shit Kid" (dialogue)
"Up in Smoke"
"Low Rider"
"1st Gear, 2nd Gear" (dialogue)
"Framed"
"Searchin'"
"Ajax Lady" (dialogue)
"Strawberry's"
"Here Come the Mounties to the Rescue"
"Sometimes When You Gotta Go, You Can't" (dialogue)
"Lost Due to Incompetence" (Theme for a Big Green Van)
"Lard Ass" (dialogue)
"Rock Fight"
"I Didn't Know Your Name Was Alex" (dialogue)
"Earache My Eye"
"Up in Smoke" Reprise

Outlaw country/punk artist Hank Williams III covered "Up In Smoke" as part of a "hidden" 42-minute track on his 2006 album Straight to Hell.

[edit] Miscellanea

The film's dialogue includes the word "man" 295 times.
The license plate on Cheech Marin's character's car, MUF DVR, was his real license plate at the time.
An early lineup for the legendary Los Angeles punk band The Germs auditioned for a part in the Battle of the Bands sequence of the film. However, the band instigated a food fight during their audition (in front of a live audience), and were told that they would not be in the film. The song which the Germs played at the audition, "Sex Boy", with sounds of the resulting riot, can be heard on the CD Germs (MIA).
A scene where the officers give away their undercover position by yelling "shoot the moon" is used as the opening sequence of the 1995 album Firme by the ska/punk band Voodoo Glow Skulls.
Anthony's name is mentioned only once in the film, when his father yells at him for not having a job. Anthony's parents, Arnold and Tempest, are played by Strother Martin and Edie Adams, and were encouraged to ad-lib their lines, leading to Mr. Stoner's classic line, "You get a goddamn job before sundown, or we're shipping you off to military school with the goddamn Finkelstein-shit kid! Son of a bitch!"