National Lampoon's Vacation

Every summer Chevy Chase takes his family on a little trip. This year he went too far.
National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
Timing: 1:39 (99 min)

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Release date
Country
Genre
Budget
$15 000 000
Box office
$61 399 552
Website
Director
Scenario
Producer
Matty Simmons
Camera operator
Composer
Ralph Burns
Artist
Jack T. Collis
Audition
Phyllis Huffman, Susan Arnold
Editing
Pembroke J. Herring
Whole Team (50)

Short description

Clark Griswold is on a quest to take his family to the Walley World theme park for a vacation, but things don't go exactly as planned.

What's left behind the scenes

  • The plot is based on John Hughes's story "Vacation '58," published in the September issue of the humor magazine National Lampoon in 1979.
  • Filming at the amusement park was not a pleasant experience for the actors. Chevy Chase recounted that some actors were sick on the rides, as they had to shoot multiple takes. Dana Barron admitted that she had to take pills to avoid motion sickness on the rides. Anthony Michael Hall later confessed that he didn't even have to act scared on the roller coaster – he was genuinely afraid.
  • In the scenes at the amusement park, Anthony Michael Hall's character is taller than Beverly D'Angelo's, although in the scenes before arriving here they were the same height. The reason is that the film's finale was reshot 4 months after filming ended, and Hall grew almost 8 centimeters during that time.
  • For a brief appearance on screen at the end of the film, actor, comedian, screenwriter and producer John Candy (1950-1994) was paid a fee of one million dollars.
  • In the scene with the dog tied to the bumper, Chevy Chase bites his lip and his breathing is uneven – this is because the actor was desperately trying to hold back laughter.
  • Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, was used as Walley World amusement park. The roller coaster shown in the film is the first in history to feature a complete loop.
  • In the scene where the Griswold family looks at the amusement park from the parking lot, the actors were actually looking at a racetrack in Arcadia, California. The racetrack was simply removed from the frame and replaced with a painted amusement park.
  • During filming, actress Imogen Coca (1908-2001) suffered a heart attack.
  • At the Dodge City bar, where the bartender shoots Clark, someone from the film crew dropped a mannequin from the second tier of scaffolding during a take, startling everyone present.
  • Filming the Griswolds' journey took up a significant portion of the allotted shooting time. Filming took place in California, Arizona, Colorado, Mississippi, Illinois, and Utah.
  • The childhood photos of Audrey on the wall are photos taken by Dan Barron from when she appeared in commercials as a child.
  • Scenes set in St. Louis and Dodge City were filmed on sets on the Warner Brothers studio lot.
  • John Candy was paid one million dollars for his brief appearance at the end of the film.
  • The plot is based on John Hughes' story "'58 Vacation," published in the September issue of the humor magazine National Lampoon in 1979.

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