The Great Outdoors (1988) on Netflix
Chicagoan Chet Ripley takes his family to a Wisconsin lake cabin for the summer. Connie's sister Kate and her investment broker husband Roman arrive uninvited with twin daughters.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.6/1056,926 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes40%
Trailer
Plot summary
Chet Ripley, Connie and their boys Buck and Ben leave Chicago for a rented cabin on a lake in Pechoggin, Wisconsin, for the summer. Connie's sister Kate arrives uninvited with her husband Roman Craig, a know-it-all investment broker, and their twin daughters, the family having dropped plans to travel through Europe. Roman shows off his money, boiling lobster where Chet's tradition is hot dogs, and he rents a speedboat to drag Chet around the water on skis without asking. Chet tells the story of a grizzly bear he once met and shot. Buck, his teenage son, tries to court Cammie, a waitress in town. Roman's presence wears on Chet as the two families crowd the same cabin.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Great Outdoors (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
In the original John Hughes script, Roman's redemption came through a daring rescue of his twin girls who had caught a giant fish that towed them around the lake in a rowboat; a mechanical fish was built, but when it could not be made to work the script was re-written around the bald-headed bear.- Before The Great Outdoors appeared in theaters, Aykroyd, Candy and Young portrayed their roles during the end credits of She's Having a Baby, where they are among the people who pitch names for the baby son of Jake and Kristy.
- Aykroyd said he was working on a sequel with Deutch titled The Great Outlaws that would "bring back Roman as a Ponzi scheme guy who victimizes a federal agent", and that he was "looking for the Candy figure" to cast in the film.
- The film was shot under the working title "Big Country", but the name was changed to avoid confusion with Big, which was due to come out at the same time.
- The menacing grizzly of the film, Jody the Bald-Headed Bear, a female who lost the fur on top of her head during a previous encounter with Chet, was played by Bart the Bear.
- Annette Bening made her film debut here, in a supporting role in a comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and John Candy.
