Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor and Cheech and Chong Are Headed to the National Film Registry
You can’t accuse the Library of Congress of being snooty. Every year, it selects 25 films for inclusion in the National Film Registry, “showcasing the range and diversity of American film heritage to increase awareness for its preservation.” Film academics might expect to find entries like Citizen Kane, The Godfather and Schindler's List among the enshrined, but Cheech and Chong?
Hey man, that’s a pretty far-out choice. Here are the comedies that made this year’s roster of historic films — and all three could be filed under “unexpected choice.”
Beverly Hills Cop
What put Beverly Hills Cop on the radar of the Library of Congress? I’ve got two guesses. First, if it didn’t exactly invent the action-comedy, Beverly Hills Cop did pioneer the idea of putting a comedy star out in front of an action movie. Without Beverly Hills Cop, you might not get Bruce Willis (fresh off his smart-ass turn in Moonlighting) fronting Die Hard, Will Smith in Men in Black and Bad Boys, Chris Tucker in Rush Hour, Billy Crystal in Running Scared or even Tom Hanks in Turner & Hooch.
And while 48 Hours predicted the SNL alum could become a star, Beverly Hills Cop was the movie that cemented that status — Murphy became the decade’s biggest box-office draw. And he’s still on a 40-year heater.
Uptown Saturday Night
1974’s Uptown Saturday Night is a crime comedy, but more importantly, it’s a film created by and starring some of the biggest Black entertainers of an era not known for diverse casts. Directed by Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor to win the Academy Award for a lead acting role, the film starred a murderer’s row that included Poitier, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, Flip Wilson, Paula Kelly and Roscoe Lee Brown.
New York Times critic Penelope Gilliatt wrote that Richard Wesley’s script “has managed to say something farcical with courageous and truthful underpinnings about Black ways of escape into a world that is full of far more fun than any that more privileged whites ever seem to create.”
Up in Smoke
The most curious entry on this list, Cheech and Chong’s intoxicating comedy certainly qualifies as a cultural artifact.
While universally panned upon its release, Up in Smoke invented the stoner comedy, a genre that produced cult classics such as Half Baked, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Pineapple Express, Dude, Where’s My Car and the entire oeuvre of Kevin Smith.
The Grammy Museum in California has an exhibit dedicated to the comedy, featuring the master tape for the soundtrack album, the annotated original script, limited-edition 40th-anniversary bongs and a few of Marin's “Blazing Chicano Guitars.”
What’s the movie about? Two guys in a van look for pot — that’s about it. If you watch, don’t expect to get caught up in the narrative, but you might get a contact high nonetheless.