Up in Smoke

Cheech and Chong's first movie is the epitome of the serious doper's heaven and hell. Heaven: they drive around in a van made entirely from 100% 'Fibreweed'. Hell: they don't know it. Heaven: they find a whole plateful of coke in the aftermath of a party. Hell: they also find a lady with a nose like the Blackwall tunnel and sniffing power equal to any Jet-vac. Covering the gamut of a laid-back, laid-out LA dope bum's world - dumb cops, 'Nam, being busted, the eternal search for a 'lid' - the movie eventually gets too out of it, and tails off into easy visual gags rather than maintaining the spaced-out repartee that made Cheech and Chong so memorable. As the most fun comes not from watching the movie but from recalling great lines later, it would seem that the audio success of C & C has not translated too well into visuals.