National Lampoon's Vacation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) |
| National Lampoon's Vacation | |
|---|---|
 National Lampoon's Vacation movie poster |
|
| Directed by | Harold Ramis |
| Produced by | Matty Simmons Robert Grand |
| Written by | John Hughes |
| Starring | Chevy Chase Beverly D'Angelo Anthony Michael Hall Dana Barron Randy Quaid Imogene Coca |
| Music by | Ralph Burns (score) Lindsey Buckingham (songs) |
| Cinematography | Victor J. Kemper, ASC |
| Editing by | Pembroke J. Herring |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | July 29, 1983 |
| Running time | 99 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | est. USD15 M |
| Followed by | National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
National Lampoon's Vacation is a 1983 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, and Anthony Michael Hall. The film features numerous others, such as comedic powerhouses John Candy and Imogene Coca, supermodel Christie Brinkley and future Ally McBeal regular Jane Krakowski, in smaller roles.
The screenplay was written by John Hughes, based on his short-story in National Lampoon magazine, "Vacation '58" (the screenplay changes the year to 1983). The original story is (reportedly) a fictionalized account of his own family's ill-fated trip to Disneyland (changed to "Wally World" for the film) when Hughes was a boy. The success of the movie helped launch his screenwriting career.
The film was a significant box office hit, earning over $61 million in the United States with an estimated budget of $15 million. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted National Lampoon's Vacation the 46th greatest comedy film of all time. It is widely considered to be the best film in National Lampoon's series of "Vacation" films, and continues to be a popular film and a staple on cable television channels. It also has a fresh rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. [1] A "Wally World Water Park" opened in Canada several years after the release of the movie.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Food additives researcher Clark Griswold (Chase) wants to spend more time with wife Ellen (D'Angelo), as well as children Rusty and Audrey (Hall and Dana Barron). So, he decides to lead the family on a cross-country expedition from the suburbs of Chicago all the way to wonderful "Wally World" — billed as "America's Favorite Family Fun Park" — in Los Angeles. However, the Griswolds' vacation begins to go comically awry before it even starts.
Arriving to pick up a new car, Clark finds the dealership has "made an error", and had the wrong car delivered. As Clark tries to complain to the salesman, his old car is flattened in a car crusher. Insistent on leaving for California the next morning, Clark reluctantly agrees to take the car on hand: a Wagon Queen Family Truckster - a hideous metallic pea-green station wagon (modeled after a Ford LTD), clad in faux wood paneling and bearing eight headlights.
Typically, Clark convinces himself this car is just what the family needed, anyway. When he brings the car home, the engine continues to run after being switched off, and the air bag deploys quite inappropriately. But Clark brushes off Ellen's last-ditch attempt to persuade him to fly to California instead, and the next morning they depart.
Lost in St. Louis, the Griswolds ask for directions in a very suspect neighborhood, only to have their car tagged. They stay overnight in St. Louis, where Ellen tries to enjoy a hot (and revealing) shower before being scared by Clark (in a homage to the infamous shower scene from 'Psycho').
Meanwhile, Clark has periodic encounters with a voluptuous young woman (Brinkley) as she drives her flashy red Ferrari; he casually flirts with her while Ellen dozes in the passenger seat, and nearly wrecks the car.
An overnight stop in Coolidge, Kansas, to visit Ellen's cousins Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and Eddie (Quaid) gets much more complicated for everyone: Eddie hits Clark up for money and then foists crotchety Aunt Edna (Coca) and her vicious dog "Dinky" on the Griswold family, so they can drive her to her son Normy's home in Phoenix, Arizona, which is "on the way".
Cousin Eddie's son Dale (John P. Navin Jr.) introduces Rusty to pornography and masturbation, while his sister Vicki (Jane Krakowski) shows Audrey a shoebox full of pot and boasts that her science teacher considers her the best at French kissing. At a picnic area, they discover that Dinky has urinated on the picnic basket. Later, leaving the smelly "Kamp Komfort", in South Fork, Colorado, they remember far too late that they've also left poor Dinky tied to the back of the car.
Lost in the desert, Clark inadvertently drives off the end of a closed road, wrecking the car, breaking Rusty's nose, and causing Audrey's first period. Stranded, Clark goes looking for help, only to become hopelessly lost, but eventually the Griswolds reunite at a gas station just a few miles away. There, Clark spends the last of his money repairing the car, thanks to the shoddy mechanics who repaired his car.
The Griswolds are only a few hours from Phoenix when they discover Aunt Edna has died in her sleep. Increasingly frustrated and on-edge, Clark decides to cover the old woman with a tarp and tie her to the roof of the car, as his wife protests this shabby treatment in the driving rain. In Phoenix, the Griswolds find Normie is out of town, so Aunt Edna's body is left sitting unceremoniously in a lawn chair in his backyard with a note pinned to her sleeve explaining what has happened.
Disillusioned by the disastrous turn of events, Ellen and the kids beg to go back to Chicago before anything else can go wrong. Clark, however, is now grimly determined to see his vacation through, and insists they press on. The next day, the Griswolds finally arrive at Wally World and find the parking lots strangely silent and empty.
At first congratulating themselves for arriving early, they soon encounter a giant statue of Marty Moose, whose goofy cartoon voice tells them, "Sorry folks! We're closed for two weeks to clean and repair America's favorite family fun park!" Clark angrily punches the statue in the nose, caving it in and causing a slurred repeat of the message.
Incredulous and now completely bonkers, Clark buys a realistic-looking BB gun and returns to the park, where he holds security guard Russ Lasky (John Candy) at gunpoint, and demands to be allowed into the park. The Griswolds ride several rides with Lasky in tow, but eventually the SWAT team arrives.
Clark and his family are about to be arrested when owner Roy Walley (Eddie Bracken) himself intervenes and opts not to press charges after hearing Clark's impassioned epitome of the American Vacation and about the two weeks of living hell that the family spent trying to drive to Walley World from Chicago. At last, the Griswolds can enjoy their vacation.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Chevy Chase | Clark W. Griswold, Jr. |
| Beverly D'Angelo | Ellen Griswold |
| Imogene Coca | Aunt Edna |
| Randy Quaid | Cousin Eddie |
| Anthony Michael Hall | Rusty Griswold |
| Dana Barron | Audrey Griswold |
| Eddie Bracken | Roy Walley |
| Brian Doyle-Murray | Kamp Komfort Clerk |
| Miriam Flynn | Cousin Catherine |
| James Keach | Motorcycle Cop |
| Eugene Levy | Car Salesman |
| John Candy | Guard Lasky |
| Christie Brinkley | The Girl in the Ferrari |
| Jane Krakowski | Cousin Vicki |
[edit] Disney references
Walley World itself is a good-natured parody of Walt Disney's Disneyland, based on the Los Angeles location. The name of the mascot, Marty Moose, is reminiscent of Disney's Mickey Mouse (although the statue actually looks and sounds more like Jay Ward's creation, Bullwinkle), and the "Marty Moose theme song" that the family sings in the car is a take-off on the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. Finally, Roy Walley himself is a pastiche of both Walt and Roy Disney, right down to the thin mustache.
[edit] Present-Day Walley World
The film's location for Walley World was set at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, north of Los Angeles. Two of the film's major roller coasters, known as Revolution (renamed to the "Whipper Snapper" in the film) and Colossus still operate at the Six Flags park today, over a quarter-century after being built.
[edit] Sequels
National Lampoon's Vacation spawned a number of sequels:
- National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985)
- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
- Vegas Vacation (1997)
- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure (2003)
With the exception of the last film, each sequel saw Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo reprise their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold, enduring their unique and unenviable brand of vacation misadventure in various locales. However, the children Rusty and Audrey are played by a different set of actors in each film (except for Audrey in the last sequel). This fact is joked about early in Vegas Vacation: when we first see the kids again, Clark tells them that he "hardly recognizes" them anymore. The various actors were Anthony Michael Hall and Dana Barron in Vacation, Jason Lively and Dana Hill in European Vacation, Johnny Galecki and Juliette Lewis in Christmas Vacation, and Ethan Embry and Marisol Nichols in Vegas Vacation. Dana Barron again plays Audrey in Christmas Vacation 2, but Rusty, like his parents, could not make it for "Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure", an NBC TV movie. However, Miriam Flynn and Randy Quaid reprise their roles as cousins Catherine and Eddie, as they did in each film aside from European Vacation.
Each sequel also manages to reference "Wally World" in some way.
[edit] TV pilot
A television pilot based on the Vacation films titled American Adventure starring Gary Cole and Helen Slater was produced in 2000, but this pilot was not picked up.
[edit] Songs
The soundtrack to the film has been released on LP, but has yet to be officially released on CD. The song "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham was featured in this movie and served as the main theme song. It was also used in two of the sequels: 1985's National Lampoon's European Vacation and 1997's Vegas Vacation.
Buckingham also composed "Dancin' Across The USA", another song on the Vacation soundtrack.
The movie also features the "Wally World National Anthem", which is sung by the Griswold family while leaving Chicago (music by Bruce Belland and Roy Rogosin, lyrics by John Hughes, Bruce Belland and Roy Rogosin). The lyrics are:
Who's the moosiest moose we know?
Marty Moose!
Who's the star of our favorite show?
Marty Moose!
M is for Merry, we're merry you see;
O is for Oh gosh, Oh golly, Oh gee;
S is for Super Swell family glee;
E is for Everything you want to be.
M - A - R - T - Y;
M - O - O - S - E.
What's that spell?
Marty Moose!
Marty Moose!
Marty Moose!
(Hyuk), that's me!
[edit] Trivia
- Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo briefly reprised their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold for a cameo in the Family Guy episode "Blue Harvest".
- Film footage of the Family Truckster navigating Chicago freeways was reused on the opening credits to the television series Married...with Children.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Vacation (1983) at the Internet Movie Database
- National Lampoon's Vacation at the 80s Movie Gateway
- "Vacation '58" by John Hughes (online text)
- "Rusty and Audrey Griswold: Where Are They Now?"(online link)
|
||||||||||||||
|
|||||
|
||||||||
