Cheech and Chong had been working together for ten years before somehow convincing a studio to let them make a film. Once finished, the studio had no idea how to market it, so the boys made comic strips and left them around making it feel like an underground film.
The Altmanesque direction style was no accident. Director Lou Adler was a fan of Robert Altman’s style and much of the dialog is ‘layered’ almost to the point of obfuscation. Lots of stars had small roles like Strother Martin, Edie Adams, Tom Skerritt, and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them Ellen Barkin and Harry Dean Stanton. Stacy Keach played the comedically authoritarian narc.
The granddaddy of the Stoner Comedy genre, Up In Smoke can be amusing at times but sadly it does not hold up. The gags lack any real creativity and the layered dialog makes it hard to understand. I was a fan of their comedy albums back in the day so I was happy to watch, but it doesn’t earn anything past AMRU 2.5. They boys made seven films together in as many years and IMDb and Metacritic both agree, this was the best of them.
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