Nearly 40 years ago when “Up in Smoke” featured on the big screen, it had turned out to be the vehicle the perfect humor of Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin. And their vehicle’s choice as they venture out to the search of marijuana in L.A. was a low-rider car nicknamed as The Love Machine.
John Blackstone recently asked the comical duo if they ever were under the influences of marijuana when they were filming, both of them replied with “Oh, no, sir.”
Marin, on the other hand, said, “No, officer. Or whatever!” And Chong reportedly added as “he uses the marijuana for medicinal purposes only.”
The movie “Up in the smoke” will be remembered after four decades as if it wasn’t released. The low budget movie, “Up in the smoke” stars two guys who have never been to a movie in their entire lives. They even admitted to the fact that they were only trying to understand which end of the camera should they use.
Other than the two actors, there was another rookie/beginner on the set, the director of the movie, Lou Adler. “They were set up, and they were also pretty much ready to go, everyone was waiting. The first and foremost A.D. leaned over and told, ‘Say action.’ as he forgot to say ‘action.’
These first-time filmmakers were only looking for fun out of a subject that until then had already been depicted as a menace on screen. In Reefer Madness, a 1936 movie referred to marijuana as burning weed with their roots connecting to hell, and this led the first of the federal laws in criminalizing the drug. And Cheech-Chong “Up in the Smoke” was made to evade those laws.
Lou Adler, the director of the movie, was already a successful and renowned music producer with big stars and big hit but in the early 70s when Adler saw Tommy and Cheech, he made up his mind to record these guys.