National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) on Netflix
The Griswold family wins an all-expense-paid trip to Europe on the game show Pig in a Poke. Clark Griswold loves the itinerary; Ellen and the children do not.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.2/1075,628 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes37%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Griswolds, Clark and Ellen with their children Rusty and Audrey, compete on the game show Pig in a Poke against a family that has never been beaten, and come away with an all-expense-paid tour of Europe. Clark embraces the itinerary the show provides; his family does not. In London the family checks into a run-down hotel, and Clark's struggles with a rental car and a roundabout keep them circling past the same landmarks. He accidentally backs the car into the stones at Stonehenge. Audrey, missing her boyfriend Jack, wants to go home, while Clark continues the tour to Paris, where he hands the family camcorder to a stranger for a photograph.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- 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 opted to star in Weird Science, Heckerling requested that both children be recast.
- John Hughes received only nominal writing and story credit, for the use of characters and ideas from the first Vacation film, but was not directly involved; he later said Warner Bros. had begged him for a sequel and he declined, returning instead with National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation in 1989.
- Scenes that supposedly take place in West Germany were not shot in Germany at all: they were filmed in Brixen, a German-speaking part of Italy.
- The film opened on July 26, 1985 in 1,546 North American theaters and grossed $12,329,627 in its opening weekend, ranking number one at the box office, and took $49,364,621 domestically in all.
- The score was composed by Charles Fox, who replaced Ralph Burns of the first film, while Lindsey Buckingham's "Holiday Road" was once again featured as the theme song.
