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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJeremiah Chechik
Written byJohn Hughes
Produced byJohn Hughes
Matty Simmons
StarringChevy Chase
Beverly D'Angelo
Randy Quaid
Juliette Lewis
Johnny Galecki
John Randolph
Diane Ladd
E.G. Marshall
Doris Roberts
William Hickey
Mae Questel
Miriam Flynn
Nicholas Guest
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
CinematographyThomas E. Ackerman
Edited byJerry Greenberg
Music byAngelo Badalamenti
Production
companies
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • December 1, 1989 (1989-12-01)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryTemplate:FilmUS
LanguageEnglish

Christmas Vacation is a 1989 Christmas comedy film directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik. It is the third installment in National Lampoon's Vacation film series, and was written by John Hughes, based on his short story in National Lampoon Magazine, Christmas ‘59. The title song was written for the movie by the husband-wife songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and was performed by Mavis Staples of The Staple Singers fame.

Since its release in 1989, Christmas Vacation has received critical acclaim and is often considered a modern holiday classic.[1][2][3][4]

Plot

Chicago resident Clark Wilhelm Griswold Jr. (Chevy Chase) has really got the Christmas spirit this year, and his wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), son Rusty (Johnny Galecki), and daughter Audrey (Juliette Lewis) have noticed that. On a quest for "The Griswold Family Christmas Tree," Clark has planned a "good, old-fashioned family Christmas." His family is wary of his plans, but Clark is oblivious.

Clark has invited Ellen's parents Art Smith (E. G. Marshall) and Francis Smith (Doris Roberts), his own parents Clark Wilhelm Griswold Sr (John Randolph) and Nora Griswold (Diane Ladd), and his Aunt Bethany (Mae Questel) and Uncle Lewis (William Hickey) to spend the holidays at the Griswold house in Chicago. But in spite of all the good intentions and careful planning, Christmas plans start to go awry.

Clark is obsessed with making everything go perfectly during the holiday season, but as soon as everyone arrives, things start going haywire, especially when the Griswolds receive some uninvited surprise guests from Kansas -- cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn), her sloppy husband Eddie (Randy Quaid), and two of their kids, Rocky (Cody Burger) and Ruby Sue (Ellen Hamilton Latzen), who have arrived in their old RV.

Clark decorates the outside of the house with 250 strands of lights with 100 bulbs on each strand for a total of 25,000 light bulbs, enough to make the power company turn on their auxiliary nuclear generator. Clark also annoys his snobby next door neighbors, Todd Chester (Nicholas Guest) and his wife Margo (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Also, Clark has nostalgic moments of Christmas past when he is accidentally locked in the attic, and watches an old home movie from a past Christmas.( which ends with the attic door was opened and he fell out of the attic.)

Even with his bumbling ways, Clark, who works for a company that produces food colorings, additives, and preservatives, manages to keep things going as he waits for his Christmas bonus from work so he'll have enough money to have a swimming pool put in the back yard.

But it turns out that Clark's boss, a scrooge whose name is Frank Shirley (Brian Doyle Murray), has decided to cut Christmas bonuses this year, without informing his employees. And Clark learns that Eddie and his family have lost their home, and are living in the RV. And in the place of his Christmas bonus, Clark is enrolled in the "Jelly of the Month" club. That causes Clark to snap and unleash a string of insults regarding Frank.

This situation gives Eddie the idea for the perfect Christmas gift for Clark after Clark offers to help Eddie treat Rocky and Ruby Sue to a good Christmas -- Eddie goes to Frank's house, puts Frank in the RV, and brings Frank to the Griswold house, so Eddie and the Griswolds can help Frank see the error of his ways.

Frank finally sees reason about the Christmas bonuses. A SWAT team, called by Frank's wife Helen (Natalia Nogulich), raids the home, but Frank explains that it's all a misunderstanding and admits he was wrong to withhold bonuses from his employees. He then decides to give Clark his bonus, along with an added 20%.

Lewis's cigar ignites the gas from the sewage Eddie had earlier dumped down the storm drain while emptying the holding tank on his RV, blasting a Santa ornament into the sky. Everyone watches the strange but touching sight, whilst Aunt Bethany sings a part of The Star-Spangled Banner, as Clark realizes his dream of the perfect family Christmas. The Santa and reindeer lawn ornaments fly across the sky, having been propelled by the explosion.

Cast

Box office performance

The movie debuted at #2 at the box-office while grossing $11,750,203 during the opening weekend, behind Back to the Future Part II. The movie eventually topped the box-office charts in its third week of release and remained #1 the following weekend. It went on to gross a total of $71,319,546 in the United States while showing in movie theaters.[5]

Soundtrack

Despite several popular songs being present in the film, no soundtrack album was released. In 1999, bootleg copies of a "10th Anniversary Limited Edition" began to appear on Internet auction sites with the claim that Warner Brothers and RedDotNet had pressed 20,000 CD's for Six Flags Magic Mountain employees to give to customers entering the park. The discs were individually numbered out of "20,000" and were sold with most of the music featured in the film along with select cuts of dialogue. Forums on movie music sites such as SoundtrackCollector and Movie Music have declared the disc to be a bootleg put together by a fan. For instance, the cut, "Christmas Vacation Medley" (claiming to be the work of composer Angelo Badalamenti), is really a track called, "Christmas at Carnegie Hall" from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York by composer John Williams and does not actually contain any of Badalamenti's score from the film.

Sequels

This is the only sequel in the Vacation series to have spawned its own direct sequel: a direct to video 2003 release entitled National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure. Randy Quaid and Miriam Flynn returned as Eddie and Catherine, along with Dana Barron again appearing as Audrey, which she played in Vacation, and Eric Idle, who played "The Bike Rider" in European Vacation reprises the role, only this time being credited as "British Man on Plane". Christmas Vacation is preceded in the Vacation series by:

Christmas Vacation is followed in the series by:

Notes

  • The original version of the movie included the line "Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse" spoken by Clarke as all the family are set to leave on Christmas Eve. The word "fucking" however was dubbed out and replaced by the word "dancing" on the DVD release and pre-watershed showings.
  • Request Pay Per View 1989
  • The broadcast television rights to Christmas Vacation are held by NBC, which currently airs a censored version of the movie every December, usually on a Sunday night. In 2006, NBC did not air the movie, which instead appeared on TBS, which listed it six times on its schedule between Sunday, December 17 and Sunday. December 24, 2006. The TBS broadcast included some of the risque language of the theatrical release, including the series of double entendre remarks a flustered Clark utters when he encounters sexy department store saleswoman Mary (Nicolette Scorsese) at the negligee counter. The CBC, however, retains much of the footage its American counterparts have excised. For example, in the beginning of the film, Clark is antagonized by a couple of men in a truck and then flips them off. This is shown in Canada, but not in the USA.
  • The French version of the film is also broadcast every year by TVA, usually in mid-December.
  • TNT broke with tradition starting in September 2007 by airing Christmas Vacation six times during the weekend of the 15th and 16th mixed between the original Vacation and Vegas Vacation. It is not known if NBC has made an agreement with TNT's regular programming and rights for the film, but the networks share coverage for sporting events such as the PGA and NASCAR races.
  • On December 19, 2007, the film made its debut on Turner Classic Movies.
  • The film aired on Cinemax and HBO from June 2008 to June 2009.
  • In Australia, The Nine Network has a tradition where it is aired every Christmas night.
  • In the UK, Christmas Vacation has aired numerous years, usually around the festive season; ITV currently holds the UK rights to film, although the rest of the Vacation movie series is held by five.
  • On October 14, 2009, the film made its debut on CMT.
  • The movie aired on AMC every 3-4 nights during December 2009 and for 24 hours on Christmas Day to very strong ratings. Chase and co-star Beverly D'Angelo were reunited as the Griswolds in a 2010 Super Bowl commercial touting vacation rental homes.[6]
  • The scene in the movie where Clark destroys the Santa's Reindeer ornaments is seen briefly in Rocky V, when Rocky's son is watching TV with his friends on Christmas night.
  • This is the first National Lampoons episode with the Griswolds to feature Rusty younger than Audrey. In the past, Audrey was the younger sibling.
  • Cody Burger who plays Rocky, did not have a single line in the entire movie.
  • In 2011, the film premiered on ABC Family as part of their 25 Days of Christmas line-up.
  • In 2010, a group of men formed a bar crawl in Red Bank, NJ entitled "Cousin Eddiecon." All participants dress in robes and trapper hats to pay homage to Randy Quaid’s character while spreading holiday cheer throughout the town. A gathering will once again take place on December 17, 2011.

References

  1. ^ ew.com
  2. ^ film.com
  3. ^ humor.about.com
  4. ^ huffingtonpost.com
  5. ^ Box Office Mojo box office information
  6. ^ http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/dec/24/fireplace-yule-log-becomes-ubiquitous-holiday-tv-o/news-breaking/
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