We kick off John Hughes week within #Johnuary with arguably the movie that put him on the map. He had quit his job as a copywriter at an advertising agency and became a writer at the National Lampoon magazine. Hughes penned a short story in the magazine called Vacation ’58 and off the back of that short story he wrote the screenplay for the movie National Lampoon’s Vacation in 1983.
I’d actually never seen this movie all the way through before. Here are my thoughts as I watched it.
- I never knew Harold Ramis directed this film. I just keep learning more and more about Harold Ramis and what an impressive guy he was
- A very young Anthony Michael Hall. I forgot he was in this. Apparently people thought he often stole the scene from Chevy Chase. It was off the back of this film that John Hughes started using Anthony Michael Hall for several of his other films
- It’s obviously ridiculous that the son and daughter can hack into Chevy’s computer map programme using their video game console, but it’s definitely good fun
- Eugene Levy! Jim’s Dad from American Pie, as the car salesman
- You probably couldn’t get away with that sort of car safety in a movie today. No seat belts in the front seat and jokes about falling asleep at the wheel.
- Breasts. This becomes a bit of a recurring theme in John Hughes movies. Hey, not complaining John
- Were vibrating beds big in the States in the 70s and 80s or something? Hughes has one in this film and also in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I’ve never really been aware of them at all apart from these films
- It’s a slightly worrying joke about the daughter saying her daddy says she’s the best at french kissing. It was probably worrying even back then
- It must have been amazing to film in Monument Valley
- There certainly are some great landscapes in this movie. I guess they shot most of it in sequence and the whole cast and crew must have had their own form of road trip whilst shooting
- It’s a bit of a weird cameo from John Candy. I just find the funny voice he’s putting on a bit weird
- I wonder how many times they had to film on the rollercoaster. This film looks like it was a lot of fun to film
- I have to say that Christie Brinkley is stunning in the pool scene
Images from Blu-Ray.com
I’m glad I finally watched this film the whole way through. I very much enjoyed it. Not completely laugh out loud funny in every scene but some classic moments and very well done throughout.
It showed that Hughes could write characters and humour whilst not resorting to slapstick or toilet humour. I believe he was on set for quite a bit of it as well so perhaps that’s where he started learning about filmmaking. Stay tuned the next post about Hughes’ early directorial efforts.