Can’t it be both?
Well, I’ll tell you one movie that wasn’t ruined by drugs : Return of the Jedi. Smoked the first joint of my life back when it was re-released in theaters, late 90s. We got back to our seats when the jetbike chase started. In the words of the philosopher Reeves : woah.
Speaking of Belushi … his last film, Neighbors, was apparently (well, overtly, I suppose) a drug and alcohol laden train wreck. A short quote from IMDB trivia page:
"At one point, John Belushi, who would soon die from a drug overdose within four months of the film debuting, accused writer Larry Gelbart of drinking too much. Belushi’s drug use also caused problems for the production of the film. "
Magical Mystery Tour is pretty bad. I’m guessing the drugs didn’t help matters.
All the weirdness was completely and rightfully owned by Russ Meyer. Ebert did he best he could under trying circumstances. E.g., Meyer had the idea that a scriptwriter had to be typing all the time. If Ebert was thinking rather than typing, Meyer would chastise him.
It was a very successful film financially. Ebert was happy with what he did. He routinely wrote about it in fond terms. He even held screenings of the movie with commentary.
Ebert also wrote Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens and the script for Who Killed Bambi? for the Sex Pistols which was only partially made. All with Russ Meyer.
Ebert had great admiration for Meyer and thought quite highly of some of his films. E.g., Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. I don’t know of anyone that thought that Russ Meyer was ever into drugs.
Then there are movies not ruined by drugs, in fact requiring them. Seen Pink Floyd’s The Wall lately?
Interesting that Caddyshack was a drugfest, and yet came out so nicely. It did have a certain goofiness to it … I’m thinking of Bill Murray’s goofy groundskeeper and Chevy Chase going “ni-ni-ni-ni” when he golfed. I’ll bet the script wasn’t written during a drug binge, though, it was far too sharp.
I’ve seen “Neighbors” it strikes me as the product of a drug binge … disconnected and vaguely off in all respects. Done with great enthusiasm but not sharp at all, like the creators’ brains just weren’t connecting properly. Might have been a good movie somewhere under all that cocaine.
The Blues Brothers was a pretty good movie, but it did have a certain slapdash quality to it. It worked with the subject matter, I guess. Jake and Elwood Blues weren’t SUPPOSED to be competent.
I have seen Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I sneaked into a theater while I was underage for the express purpose of being able to brag I’d seen an adult movie before I was legally allowed to. I left the theater thinking that if that was an adult movie, adulthood was not all it was cracked up to be.
I can’t imagine Zardoz getting made without a heavy does of, what I’m guessing is a lot of hallucinogens and cocaine, by everyone from the caterers all the way up to the studio heads. Not that I believe there was a even a good movie there to begin with, but seeing Sean Connery in that ridiculous red He-Man getup is kind of worth sitting through it (I seen it a few times, read the Wikipedia synopsis, and I still don’t have any clue what’s happening).
I had the impression that the screwed-up plots and implausibilities of a majority of the police/detective/action dramas of the '80s-early '90s could be explained by rampant drug use by the writers/directors/producers.
Eight Million Ways To Die stands out in my mind as an example.
What, you think a pony-tailed Sean Connery in a diaper holding a gun is the product of some kind of drug binge?
You are almost certainly right, if the rest of the movie is any indication. I have seen it. It is PROFOUNDLY stupid and muddled. The sort of movie that makes you think, “Somebody should have sobered up SOMEWHERE in the process of making this movie …”
I have another nominee. Frogs for Snakes, a movie about actors moonlighting as illegal money collectors for, I guess, loan sharks. It was supposed to have been largely improvised. I think it was just largely fucked up. I saw it on cable one night, I kept trying to figure out what it was going at with such energy, but finally decided there was no “there” there.