National Lampoon's European Vacation

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European Vacation is a 1985 American comedy film directed by Amy Heckerling and written by John Hughes and Robert Klane based on a story by Hughes. The second film in National Lampoon's Vacation film series, it stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo. Dana Hill and Jason Lively replace Dana Barron and Anthony Michael Hall as Griswald children Audrey and Rusty. After Hall declined to reprise his role (he decided to star in Weird Science instead), the producers decided to recast both children.

The film is the only installment in the series in which the family's name is spelled "Griswald", instead of "Griswold".

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Plot

The Griswald family competes in a game show called Pig in a Poke and wins an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe. In a whirlwind tour of western Europe, chaos of all sorts ensues. They stay in a fleabag London hotel with a sloppy, tattooed Cockney desk clerk. While in their English rental car, a yellow Austin Maxi, Clark drives the family around the busy Lambeth Bridge roundabout for hours, unable to maneuver his way out of traffic. His tendency to drive on the wrong side of the road causes frequent accidents, including knocking over a bicyclist (Eric Idle), who reappears throughout the film. At Stonehenge, Clark backs the car into an ancient stone monolith, toppling all the stones like dominoes, which they do not even notice as they happily leave the scene.

In Paris, the family wears stenciled berets, causing Rusty to be teased by young women at the Eiffel Tower observation deck. Clark offers to get rid of the beret for Rusty, but when he throws it away, another visitor's dachshund mistakes it for a Frisbee and jumps off the tower after it. The family's video camera is stolen by a passerby whom Clark had asked to take a picture of the family. Clark also mocked by a French waiter for his terrible French. Later, Clark and Ellen visit a bawdy Paris can-can dance show, finding Rusty already there with a prostitute.

Next, in a West German village, the Griswalds burst in on a bewildered elderly couple, who they mistakenly think are relatives but who end up providing them dinner and lodging anyway, not being able to understand the other's language. Clark turns a lively Bavarian folk dance stage performance into an all-out street brawl, after which, while fleeing, he hastily knocks down several street vendors' stands and gets their Citroën DS stuck in a narrow medieval archway.

In Rome, the Griswalds rent a car at a travel office, but unknown to them, the men in charge are thieves, holding the real manager captive. The lead thief gives them a car with the manager in the trunk, claiming he lost the trunk keys. The next day Ellen is shocked to discover that private, sexy videos of her from the family's stolen video camera have been used in a billboard advertising porn (which further explains the man giving them 3 times what the Griswalds claim they lost when they bailed out of Germany), leaving her completely humiliated. After screaming angrily at Clark (who had told her he had erased the video, but then confessed he hadn't gotten around to it yet), Ellen storms off to their hotel, where she encounters the thief who rented them the car. She confesses her recent troubles, still unaware that he is a criminal. The man then tries to get the car keys, which are in her purse, but fails. When the police arrive at the hotel, he kidnaps Ellen, prompting Clark to rescue her. On the flight back to the U.S., Clark accidentally causes the plane to knock the Statue of Liberty's torch upside down.

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Cast

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Production

Locations

Famous landmarks and sights appearing as the family tours England, France, West Germany, and Italy include:

• London's Tower Bridge
• Lambeth Bridge Roundabout (Clark drives the car into the inner ring and can't get out of the traffic)
• Buckingham Palace
• Heathrow Airport, Hounslow, Middlesex
• Big Ben (which Clark repeatedly announces to the kids on every loop around the Lambeth Bridge roundabout)
• Palace of Westminster
• Stonehenge - a scale model of the monument was constructed and Wiltshire was not visited by the crew
• Paris' Left Bank
• Fontaine des Innocents
• Eiffel Tower
• Louvre museum
• Notre Dame de Paris cathedral
• Rome's Colosseum
• Spanish Steps
• Piazza Navona

Other locations used in the film include:

• Statue of Liberty (the torch of which their plane crashes into and knocks over)
• Notting Hill, west London (where Clark runs over Eric Idle's character)

Scenes supposedly taking place in West Germany were actually shot in a German-speaking part of Italy (Brixen).

Music

The musical score for National Lampoon's European Vacation was composed by Charles Fox, who replaced Ralph Burns of the first film. Lindsey Buckingham's "Holiday Road" was once again featured as the film's theme song, with many other contemporary songs included throughout the film.

1. "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham
2. "Some Like It Hot" by Power Station
3. "Town Called Malice" by The Jam
4. "Problèmes d'amour" by Alexander Robotnick
5. "Ça plane pour moi" by Plastic Bertrand
6. "Pig In a Poke" by Danny Gould
7. "Baby It's You, Yes I Am" by Danger Zone
8. "New Looks" by Dr. John
9. "Back in America" by Network

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Release and reception

Box office

The film opened July 26, 1985 in 1,546 North American theaters and grossed $12,329,627 its opening weekend, ranking number one at the box office. After its initial run, the film grossed a total of $49,364,621 domestically.

Critical response

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 39% based on reviews from 23 critics, with an average of 4.7 out of 10.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times thought positively of the film stating, "While it's very much a retread, it succeeds in following up the first film's humor with more in a similar vein." She added, "The film's best visual humor arises from the mere juxtaposition of European settings with the funny hats, T-shirts and soda cans with which the Griswalds announce their presence." Entertainment magazine Variety gave the film a negative review explaining, "As the family of characters cartwheel through London, Paris, Italy and Germany - with the French deliciously taking it on the chin for their arrogance and rudeness - director Amy Heckerling gets carried away with physical humor while letting her American tourists grow tiresome and predictable. Structurally, the film unfolds like a series of travel brochures."

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References

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External links

• National Lampoon's European Vacation on IMDb
• National Lampoon's European Vacation at AllMovie

Source of the article : Wikipedia