National Lampoon’s European Vacation  ★★★

THERE have been numerous films that have carried the National Lampoon moniker, but most don’t matter.

One of the few that does is European Vacation, released in 1985.

National Lampoon was an American satirical journal published from the 1970s to ’90s, the likes of which we rarely see now due mainly to social media.

In contrast to Mad Magazine, National Lampoon was predominantly written rather than visual satire and focused on wider social issues as well as mass media and cultural touch points.

During its run, the company behind National Lampoon branched out across the media spectrum, including lending its name to a series of films starting with John Landis’ great 1978 comedy Animal House with John Belushi.

While probably 20-odd films have borne the title since, only Animal House came anywhere near embracing some of the cutting staire of the magazine.

In fact, only half the films are worth writing about as pure entertainments, including the five films in the Vacation series released between 1983 and 1997.

The first, National Lampoon’s Vacation, written by the legendary John Hughes (Home Alone, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, etc), is a modern comedy classic thanks also to the masterful central performance from Chevy Chase.

From Caddyshack to Communion, Chase has been an ongoing influential comic. You can see elements of his well-meaning, accident-prone and occasionally manic Clark Griswold in a host of other characters, from Mr Bean to the father in Modern Family.

All Clark wants in the original film is to re-create his childhood by taking the family on an exciting, sentimental and educational cross-country road trip to the Wally World amusement park.

What they get, largely thanks to a combination of happenstance and his inherent ineptness, is a series of obstacles that slowly and hilariously bring Clark to the edge of his fragile sanity.

In European Vacation the same basic premise drives the comedy, but added is a nasty little streak that sends up the French, English, Germans and Americans through caricature pushed to comic extremes.

Back along for the trip are Beverly D’Angelo as Clark’s wife Ellen and their bickering teenage kids Audrey and Rusty.

The film starts with a nice cameo from John Astin, best known as Gomez in the original Addams Family television series, who plays the host of a game show called Pig in a Poke on which the Griswolds accidentally win a European vacation.

First stop is London where comics like Mel Smith, Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle are also featured. Smith’s cameo as a rude and disheveled hotel proprietor is the best of these appearances.

I won’t recap everything here but my favourites moments include the car at Stonehenge, the dog atop the Eiffel Tower, visiting the Louvre with 15 minutes before closing  and the surprise stay with distant German relatives Fritz and Helga.

Compared to the original European Vacation is a little too long, not as consistently hilarious and has to add the ubiquitous robbery and kidnapping sub-plot near the end to pad the proceedings out.

But, 35 years on it still compares favourably to many current comedies.