It used to be that Hollywood often turned Broadway hits into movies.

While that occasionally still happens — “Chicago,” “Nine,” “Rent” and “Rabbit Hole” are recent examples — it’s no longer the rule.

These days, it’s just as likely Broadway is turning movie hits into plays — often musicals. “Spider-Man,” “Legally Blonde, the Musical,” “Bring It On: The Musical,” “Billy Elliot the Musical,” “The Producers” and “Young Frankenstein” are but a few recent examples.

While those Broadway shows were created from more recent cinematic roots, the creators of “Reefer Madness: The Musical” reached all the way back to 1936 for their inspiration.

Film Streams director Rachel Jacobson, for one, is not surprised.

“I think I’ve seen clips from that movie in more documentaries than almost any other I can think of,” Jacobson said. “People use it as an example of hysteria. That’s why it’s become so demonized.”

Now Film Streams and the Blue Barn Theatre are teaming to bring you both the film version and the stage musical within two weeks of each other.

Tonight at 7 p.m. Film Streams’ Ruth Sokolof Theater will screen “Reefer Madness,” and the entire Blue Barn cast of the musical will be there.

The Blue Barn originally staged “Reefer Madness: The Musical” in June 2009, and it quickly became the biggest seller in the theater’s 20-year history.

It was also the most nominated show at both the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards and the Theatre Arts Guild Awards that season.

Originally released as “Tell Your Children,” the movie “Reefer Madness” was financed by a church group and intended to be shown to parents to teach them about the dangers of marijuana.

After the movie was finished, a producer bought it, re-edited it and showed it on the exploitation film circuit.

It gained new prominence in the 1970s, when marijuana use became common among many war protesters, rock music fans and hippies. They saw “Reefer Madness” as an unintentional comedy. Advocates for reform of marijuana laws also pointed to it as a piece of outrageous propaganda.

The Blue Barn version was so popular that director Susan Clement-Toberer wanted to extend the run an extra weekend, but a key cast member had a schedule conflict.

Clement-Toberer asked the entire cast if they would be willing to revive the show in spring 2011 (she already knew her season for 2009-10).

Amazingly, two chorus members and all her lead players are back: Paul T. Hanson and Jenn Witt as Jimmy and Mary, a strait-laced high school couple whose lives skid into the dumper after they’re introduced to pot; Theresa Sindelar as Mae, who runs a den of iniquity; Ryan Pivonka as drug pusher Jack; Bailey Carlson as wanton Sally, who seduces Jimmy; Ben Beck as Ralph, a marijuana addict so hooked he fairly twitches with craving; and Martin Scott Marchitto as the melodramatic narrator.

The characters all appear in the film, though Mary is Jimmy’s sister rather than girlfriend in the movie version, and the Sally character is named Blanche.

In the musical, which is a heightened, stylized version of the already heightened, stylized movie, marijuana use leads to a fatal hit-and-run, cannibalism, the sale of a baby, sexual hedonism, a fatal shooting, insanity and a case of the munchies taken to a homicidal extreme.

No doubt smoking pot and driving or guns are bad combinations. Some studies have concluded that marijuana use often leads to harder drugs. This isn’t totally a laughing matter. Using and possessing are still crimes, except in those places where medical use has been legalized.

But there’s also no doubt the movie’s breathless warnings and the musical’s high camp take the dangers of marijuana as far over the top as they can.

Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney wrote the musical, which opened in Los Angeles in 1998 and moved to off-Broadway in 2001.

Clement-Toberer said she chose it because it was unlikely to be done at any other theater in town and because its high camp reminded her of past Blue Barn shows such as “Little Nelly’s Naughty Noel,” “Go-Go Boys From Planet X” and “Reform School Timmy: An XXXmas Carol.”

“It’s campy, wild, clever, funny, and highly stylized, which the Blue Barn is known for,” she said. “We had a blast doing it the first time, and the cast was really hungry to do it again.”