| National Lampoon's European Vacation | |
| Director: | Amy Heckerling |
| Producer: | Matty Simmons |
| Screenplay: | Robert Klane |
| Based On: | Characters by John Hughes |
| Music: | Charles Fox |
| Cinematography: | Robert Paynter |
| Editing: | Pembroke J. Herring |
| Distributor: | Warner Bros. |
| Runtime: | 94 minutes[1] |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $17 million[2] |
| Gross: | $49.3 million |
National Lampoon's European Vacation is a 1985 American comedy film directed by Amy Heckerling and written by Robert Klane based on characters created by John Hughes. The second film in National Lampoon's Vacation film series, it stars Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Dana Hill, Jason Lively, Victor Lanoux, and Eric Idle with special appearances by John Astin, Paul Bartel, Maureen Lipman, Willy Millowitsch, Mel Smith, and Moon Zappa. It tells the story of the Griswold family when they win an all-expense-paid trip to Europe as chaos of all sorts occur.
The film received mixed reviews from critics but was a financial success.
The Griswold family competes in a game show called Pig in a Poke and win an all-expense-paid trip to Europe, and in a whirlwind tour of Western Europe, chaos sorts ensues.
They stay in a sordid London hotel with a sloppy, tattooed Cockney desk clerk. While in their English rental car, a yellow Austin Maxi, Clark's tendency to drive on the wrong side of the road causes frequent accidents. Later, Clark drives the family around the busy Lambeth Bridge roundabout for hours, unable to maneuver out of the chaotic traffic. At Stonehenge, he accidentally backs the car into an ancient stone monolith, toppling all the stones like dominoes.
In Paris, the family's camcorder is stolen by a passerby whom Clark had asked to take a picture of the family. Clark is also mocked by a French waiter for his terrible French, although he does not realize it. 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, landing safely in a nearby fountain. Later, Clark and Ellen visit a bawdy Paris can-can dance show, finding Rusty there with a prostitute.
Next in a West German village, the Griswolds burst in on a bewildered elderly couple, whom they mistakenly think are relatives due to mistaking the address, but the couple provides them dinner and lodging anyway, each family not 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 Griswolds 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 camcorder have been used in a billboard advertising porn, leaving her humiliated. After screaming at Clark (who had told her he had erased the video), Ellen storms off to their hotel, where she encounters the thief who rented them the car. She confesses her 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 and takes her away in the Volkswagen Beetle. Clark chases the thief all over Rome until he ends it up in a fountain. The police arrest the thief.
On the flight home, Clark tries to find a WC but falls into the pilot's cockpit and accidentally forces the plane to drop altitude, knocking the Statue of Liberty's torch upside down as Rusty declares, "Yep, the Griswolds are back."
The Griswolds:
Characters in America:
Characters in England:
Characters in France:
Characters in Germany:
Characters in Italy:
John Hughes received nominal credit for writing and story, due to the use of characters and ideas from the first Vacation film, but was not directly involved with European Vacation.[4] Hughes would later state that Warner Bros. had begged him for a sequel to Vacation but he declined at the time. He would eventually agree to return to the franchise by adapting one of his other National Lampoon stories, "Christmas '59," into National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation in 1989.[5]
Producer Matty Simmons initially told Dana Barron she would be returning to the role of Audrey. But after Anthony Michael Hall declined to reprise his role and was opting to star in Weird Science, Heckerling requested both children be recast.[6]
Famous landmarks and sights appearing as the family tours England, France, West Germany, and Italy include:[7]
Other locations used in the film include:
Scenes supposedly taking place in West Germany were actually shot in a German-speaking part of Italy (Brixen).
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.
National Lampoon's European Vacation 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.[8] After its initial run, the film grossed a total of $49,364,621 domestically.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives National Lampoon's European Vacation a score of 37% based on reviews from 30 critics, with an average of 5.1 out of 10. The critical consensus reads; "European Vacation charts a course through a succession of pretty destinations, but the journey itself lacks the laughs that made the original outing so memorable."[9] On Metacritic, it has a score of 47 out of 100 based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[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 Griswolds announce their presence."[11] 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."[12]