Still Smokin (1983)

Cheech & Chong are invited to a celebrity party/festival in Amsterdam. When they get there, however, it turns out that the guy who invited them has taken off with all the money, and the ... See full summary »

Director:

Tommy Chong

Writers:

Tommy Chong, Cheech Marin

Stars:

Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Hans Man in 't Veld

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Cheech Marin	...	Cheech
Tommy Chong	...	Chong (as Thomas Chong)
Hans Man in 't Veld	...	Promoter
Carol van Herwijnen	...	Hotel Manager (as Carol van Herwijen)
Shireen Strooker	...	Assistant Manager
Susan Hahn	...	Hotel Maid
Arjan Ederveen	...	Bellboy
Kees Prins	...	Bellboy
Mariette Bout	...	Barge Waitress
Fabiola	...	Barge Lady
Carla van Amstel	...	Queen Beatrix

Storyline

Cheech & Chong are invited to a celebrity party/festival in Amsterdam. When they get there, however, it turns out that the guy who invited them has taken off with all the money, and the rest of the hosts have a VERY limited budget. They are actually expecting Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton, so our heroes gets to be Mr. Burt and Mr. Dolly. We follow them around Amsterdam, at their hotel, (still) smokin' joints and doing shows.

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Plot Keywords:

joint | grass | cannabis use | male masturbation | masturbation | 

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Taglines:

They'll have you ROLLING in your seats!

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Genres:

Comedy | Music

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 May 1983 (USA)

Also Known As:

Cheech and Chong: Still Smokin'

Filming Locations:

Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Cheech and Chong Comedy Festival Number One

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The name of the movie within a movie was "The Harder They Don't Come". It starred Shel Likkerbottom and Pryor Convictions, the latter being a parody of Richard Pryor's name. The title also was a spoof, of Jimmy Cliff's Jamaican film, The Harder They Come.

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Quotes

Cheech: Now you know what I want you to do, don't you? And it ain't prayin', cop.

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Connections

References The Harder They Come (1972)

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Soundtracks

"Proud Mary"
(c) Jondora Music

User Reviews

An ill-conceived misfire...

Nobody else seems to know how to make a hilarious, easy-going film like Up In Smoke, and if this effort is any indication, it would appear that the duo don't really know it either. In fact, if I had to assess why Up In Smoke was such a classic in spite of its uneven pace, Still Smokin' would lead me to believe that it was purely a miraculous accident. But even without comparison to Up In Smoke, Still Smokin' is by any standard a complete mess.

The concept around which the film is based seems interesting enough. The stoner duo, playing themselves for a change, are invited to a film festival in Holland. The idea being that Holland, with its somewhat less Nancy-Boy approach to drug consumption, regards the pair as celebrities. Or at least, that is the idea behind one of the sketches. And this is where the problem begins. The plot, such as it is, loosely ties together a series of Comedy Company-style sketches that just don't work. Some of them, such as the interview with an adoring Dutch film critic society, smack of self-indulgence.

The one part of this film that comes close to working is the blind blues harmonica player. Chong literally comes onto the stage wearing some kind of brown paint over his face, and, tapping out a beat with his foot, blows into his empty hands. It is a lot funnier to watch than it looks on paper (or a monitor), and I still cannot watch a lot of Charles Bronson's scenes in C'era una volta il West without cracking up because of it. If the rest of the film had been like this, it would have been a major success.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film is based around such idiocies as a wrestling match with invisible opponents that goes on way too long, or a stage performance in which the stoner duo impersonate dogs. I can't remember if they really do such things as sniff each others' butts, but given how low and undignified this sounds in text form, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. What would surprise me would be the Paramount executives being fully sober and lucid when they greenlighted this mess. Seriously, did they even have a finished script when principal photography began?

In all, I gave Still Smokin' a one out of ten. It is not bad enough to be good, but it is bad enough to be just plain bad. Aside from the one funny skit I outlined above, the entire film was, and still is, a big waste of cash. I am not surprised in the slightest that the Just Say No movement picked up momentum shortly after films like this. They suggest quite strongly that marijuana might not be so harmless after all.