On December 1, 1989, the third Chevy Chase Vacation movie made its debut in the movie theaters. Instantly the “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” movie became a holiday comedy and classic.
Summary
As the holidays approach, Clark Griswold strives to have the best Christmas yet. He starts by dragging his family to a tree farm where he finds the largest tree he can take home. While Clark becomes overjoyed with how “perfectly” the tree fits in their living room, the family receives some unexpected guests.
Things begin to go haywire, as one unfortunate event leads to another. Their obnoxious cousin Eddie decides to park his camper on Griswold property, while Clark and Ellen’s parents bicker. As if the Griswold family Christmas is not already ruined, the bad news continues. Clark realizes that he isn’t getting his annul holiday bonus. Throughout these hardships, the family manages to have a memorable Christmas that they will cherish forever.
“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” the third in the series, takes a different route by having their relatives take a vacation to visit them. However, “National Lampoon’s Christmas” and “National Lampoon’s European Vacation,” consist of the Griswold family visiting somewhere else.
Meet the Actors
The main character Chevy Chase plays Clark Griswold and portrays a Christmas fanatic that truly captivates the audience. Chevy Chase also stars in “Caddyshack” and “Fletch.” Beverly D’Angelo the underrated screen comedian plays Ellen Griswold, the wife of Clark. She also stars in “Vacation” and “Vegas Vacation.” Randy Quaid plays the thankless role of Cousin Eddie, whose secret is that he and his family have been living in an old camper, and don’t have any money to spend on Christmas.
It’s a little disappointing, how little the two sets of in-laws made in the movie. I felt that there are too many characters for one movie, and the in-laws were only captured in the background. The story states that the in-laws hate each other, however, they hardly interact throughout the movie. Later in the movie, Uncle Lewis (William Hickey) and Aunt Bethany (Mae Questel) come to join the Griswold Christmas and receive a lot of screen time. Their confusing comments and late reactions gives the movie a warm and lighthearted feel.
Critiques
I genuinely enjoyed Clark Griswold as a character because I feel his acting made the film more entertaining. Especially when he would deliver a line of dialogue with a straight face. There were also some moments of great physical comedy by Chase. For example, his physical reaction to the tree bursting out of the window was hysterical.
The video was of only moderate quality and I felt the camera angles weren’t the best either. Throughout the movie, the viewer could see a curtain of grain hanging over the picture which became distracting at times. It was most noticeable during the day time scenes, however, the black levels were fairly solid and without grain. The voices within the movie are slightly quieter, and lacking the sharpness of clarity during some of the scenes.
Movie Information
The “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” has the rating of PG-13 and the director of the movie is Jeremiah S. Chechik. The movie is about one hour and thirty-seven minutes long. The movie is available on DVD and it went on to gross a total of $71,319,546 in the United States while showing i moive theaters. At the time it was the highest-grossing film in the series, until the release of Vacation in 2015.
The film made it’s debut on home media seven different times. VHS and Laserdisc in early 1990, a DVD in 1997, and a “special edition” DVD in 2003. HD DVD as well as Blue-ray editions issued in 2006. Then, in 2009 a second Blu-ray of the film was released as an “Ultimate Collector’s Edition.” Meanwhile, a simple Blu-ray/DVD combo and a steel book Blu-ray was spread in 2015.
