"UP IN SMOKE" DOWN IN HISTORY

          The granddaddy of all stoner movies turns 40.

          To this day, the opening notes of War's "Low Rider" call to mind images of a guy with a Groucho Marx-like mustache, red knit cap, yellow tank top, red suspenders, and half-lidded eyes dusting off his lowrider. The one that says Love Machine and MUF DVR.

          Similarly, when one feels the burning need to advertise rock-ribbed counterculture affiliation, one obtains the curly brown hair and beard, red bandana, Hawaiian print shirt, and round John Lennon glasses available in one's Tommy Chong kit.

           For forty years now, film fans and stoners alike have paid homage to Cheech Marin by waking up on a couch assaulted by dirty diaper scent and placing a foot in a bowl of soggy Cheerios.

          Up in Smoke (1978) is the heroic story of Pedro (Marin) who picks up Anthony (Chong) while hitchhiking, and together they smoke pot and score with ladies on their way to a rock n' roll competition. Meanwhile, spectacularly inept cops led by Stacey Keach are on the lookout for a big dope shipment coming in from Mexico, unaware that the van being driven by the equally oblivious Pedro and Anthony is the shipment itself made entirely of pot.

          Featuring memorable cameos by Strother Martin as Chong's angry dad and Tom Skerrit as a crazy Viet Nam vet pot dealer, the film focuses on the hypocrisy of the older generation and roasts authority in general as often as possible. (A judge, for example, gets caught drinking vodka in court.) But Cheech and Chong, who wrote the movie, also skewer themselves and the Hippie drug culture. 

          Cheech asks Chong what they're smoking. 

          "It's mostly Maui-Wowie, man, but it's got some Labrador." 

          Cheech doesn't understand. Chong explains his dog got into his stash, so he had to follow it around for a couple days to get it back.

          Nine years earlier, the '60s ended with Easy Rider, with which Up in Smoke compares, except it's a comedy.

          Being counterculture is what drove the movie. Made in the days when pot was really illegal, the sight of a motorcycle cop too stoned to remember what he was doing by the time he reaches the driver's side window because he just passed through the fumes resonated.

          Years later, Cheech changed his ways and became Don Johnson's sidekick on a TV show. Chong, who remained true, did prison time ostensibly for selling bongs during the Bush-Cheney years because of his name being synonymous with pot. And then years after all that, they got back together and started touring again as Cheech and Chong.

          Followed up by a couple sequels--Next Movie and Nice Dreams--Up in Smoke retains its status as the original pot comedy.

UP IN SMOKE

Starring Cheech Marin,

Tommy Chong,

Stacey Keach,

Strother Martin,

Tom Skerrit,

June Fairchild

Directed by Lou Adler

Written by Thomas Chong and Cheech Marin

Runtime 86 minutes

Rated R