For the eighth film of Christmas my
true love gave to me . . . not only one of the funniest Christmas films ever
made but one of the funniest movies ever. Period.
I remember watching it with my (at
the time) girlfriend who absolutely hated it. I was sat there chortling,
snorting and howling like an idiot, whilst she was sat beside me, stony-faced
and probably wondering what the hell I was laughing at. Saying that, she didn’t
like the Farrelly Brothers’ hilarious Dumb
and Dumber (1994) or Clint Eastwood’s overlooked Civil War Gothic drama The Beguiled (1971) or Stanley Kubrick’s
emotionally draining Paths of Glory
(1957) or even his even better Dr
Strangelove (1964) or Quentin Tarantino’s exhilarating and brilliantly
constructed Pulp Fiction, (1994)
which really proves that – where films are concerned – she had no taste
whatsoever.
The epithet National Lampoon used before the main title of a movie is generally
an indication that you are about to watch a sub-standard so-called comedy that’s
usually a string of weak or non-existent jokes strung together to form a
rudimentary storyline that is neither interesting or funny. As far as I’m aware
there are only three National Lampoon
films that are any good – one is John Landis’s rather marvellous Animal House (1978), the second is Harold
Ramis’s original Vacation (1983) and
the third is Christmas Vacation (1989) directed by Jeremiah S.. Chechick, which is easily the funniest of the National Lampoon Vacation series.
Just for the record please avoid the other two Vacation films, European and Vegas, neither of which is funny in the slightest. Such is the stigma of being associated with the unfunniness of National Lampoon that the movie website IMDB list National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation merely as Christmas Vacation. And before you say anything I know that unfunniness is not a real word. I just made it up. And what's wrong with that? If Shakespeare could do it so can I.
Christmas Vacation, the third in National Lampoon's Vacation series, was scripted by John Hughes and
for those of you who are struggling to remember why you remember the name John
Hughes, then let me remind you. He was responsible for writing some of the most
successful comedies of the 80s and 90s – The
Breakfast Club (1985), Pretty in Pink
(1986), Planes, Trains and Automobiles
(1987), Uncle Buck (1989), Home Alone (1990), Beethoven (1992), the remake of Miracle
on 34th Street (1994) and the outstanding (and in my opinion the
best comedy of the 1980s) Ferris
Bueller’s Day Off (1986).
Christmas Vacation charts Clark Griswold and his
family’s Christmas celebrations, where nothing goes right – the Christmas tree
that was illegally chopped down catches fire and its replacement is home to a
very angry squirrel, freeloading, hillbilly relatives in mobile homes with
defective toilets turn up, the annual bonus is not what was expected and the
cat gets fried by dodgy Christmas tree lights. What’s so good about this film
is that this is the kind of terrible Christmas that could happen to anyone –
probably not as extreme as this one – but definitely within the realms of
possibility.
It’s also one of the few comedies
that never lets up – from Chevy Chase driving his car under a forty ton truck
at the beginning to the SWAT team crashing into his living room at the end – and
I remember crying with laughter and gasping for air the first time I saw it.
Chevy Chase as the eternally optimistic Clark – who just wants the best for himself
and his family, but whose plans always seem doomed to failure – is brilliant in
probably his last really great comic performance before his career stalled for
twenty years, only for him to re-emerge in 2009 to great critical acclaim – and
with a cast of young actors – in the quirky and genuinely funny US television
comedy series Community.
Randy (not quite so good looking as
his brother Dennis) Quaid, a much admired and versatile actor, is Cousin Eddie,
Clark’s hick, sponging brother-in-law whose weird kids still sleep on rubber
sheets. When he arrives at Clark’s house in his RV with his wife, two kids and
dog he asks Clark if he’s surprised. “Surprised?” replies Clark, “I couldn’t be
more surprised if I woke up tomorrow morning with my head sewn to the carpet.”
Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Nicholas Guest play Clark’s snooty neighbours, Margo and Todd, absolutely straight.
There’s a great scene where they come home to find their expensive hi-fi system
destroyed. The complicated way it ended up like that is a thing of wonder to
behold and also extremely funny.
There is a terrific supporting cast
– Beverly D’Angelo as Clark’s long suffering wife, Juliette Lewis and Johnny
Galecki (now in the hugely successful TV series The Big Bang Theory) as the kids, Diane Ladd, E.G. Marshall as the
in-laws, and veteran actors William Hickey and Mae Questel (the original Betty
Boop) as a senile old uncle and aunt. There’s also Brian Doyle-Murray as Clark’s
boss Frank Shirley. Brian Doyle-Murray should be familiar to fans of Groundhog Day (1993) in which he played
Buster, alongside the great Bill Murray, who just happens to be his brother.
Christmas Vacation is one of those rare things – a film that was
advertised as a Christmas comedy that
is actually not just funny but hilarious for almost its entire length. So do
yourself a favour – settle down and let the Griswold family lead you through
the most disastrous Christmas of their lives.
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