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..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington



Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby made a nice chunk of change extracting the darndest things from youngsters on television. Sometimes, college kids say some pretty unexpected things, too.

As some readers of this column might recall, I commute to Las Vegas once a week to teach a class in film studies at UNLV. This past semester, the focus was criticism; last fall, it was genre studies/comedy.

As far as I can tell, the students enjoy the three hours we spend together each week. That’s probably because I’m not the world’s toughest grader, and they get to sample scenes from movies they might not otherwise have seen. For my part, the exchange of ideas is both enlightening and personally rewarding.

One nice thing about teaching at a school that isn’t regarded as a farm team for Hollywood studios – at least, not yet – is the confidence that comes from knowing my students won’t walk into the classroom on the first day immediately assuming they know more about the curriculum I do. Hardly any have succumbed to the many arcane theories, clichés and prejudices handed down by previous generations of cineastes (a.k.a., geeks). Neither do their lists of 10 favorite and 10 “greatest” movies – Assignment No. 1 -- necessarily correspond to those compiled by Cahiers du Cinema and Sight and Sound.

On the other hand, it’s sometimes difficult to convince these same young men and women that it may be more nutritious for them to devour a few week’s worth of Francois Truffaut, Robert Flaherty and Jim Jarmusch, instead of a steady diet of Ashton Kutcher, Michael Moore and the Farrelly Brothers. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little fast food every now and then. When pressed, most consumers of such fatty and carb-heavy snacks will find interesting ways to explain their tastes and choices.

One student even bravely agreed to defend Kutcher’s My Boss’ Daughter before the entire class. After a closer examination, though, he agreed that it was beyond redemption.

In February and March, we spent a lot of time discussing The Passion of the Christ. Almost everyone in the class of 80-plus students had voluntarily purchased a ticket to see Mel Gibson’s evangelical blockbuster, and the vast majority admitted to being positively impressed by it, in one way or another. What I found most remarkable, though, was how disturbed the students were by the press coverage that preceded the release of TPOTC, and what they saw as a reckless campaign to brand it prematurely as anti-Semitic.

At first, I was taken aback by the near-unanimity on the film. But the passion of the students, if you will, fueled some lively discussions, which opened their minds to other, more critically approved works, including the Kazantzakis and Scorsese versions of The Last Temptation of Christ, Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew and Python’s The Life of Brian.

Similarly lively exchanges, this time on a filmmaker’s obligation to history, were inspired by close readings of JFK, Interview With the Assassin and other films based on the assassination of President Kennedy.

We filled the last three weeks of Film Criticism 300 with scenes from movies that were set in Las Vegas, or attempted to document the last 60 years of its history. Among the films partially screened, naturally, were Casino, The Cooler, Bugsy, One From the Heart, The Godfather, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Swingers. Other titles were mentioned, of course, but it was the movie I took most for granted that the students championed.

When, in the final exam, the class was asked to name the one film that most succinctly summed up the Las Vegas experience for them, and, thus, could be recommended to a first-time visitor, nearly two-thirds picked Vegas Vacation. If they had merely picked this chapter in the National Lampoon canon because it was funny and showed all the “cool” landmarks of Las Vegas, it probably would have resulted in a disappointing grade. But, most were able to convince me it was as good a choice as any of the other pictures I’d shown.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, however. Last fall, in Genre Studies, I asked the students to pick out the title that was most representative of the sub-genre of films whose comedy is inspired by the dysfunctions manifested during holiday family reunions. An even larger percentage of that class chose National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation … again, without prompting.

While this might have caused a professor at USC, UCLA or NYU to start ingesting vast quantities of anti-depressants, it inspired me to scratch just slightly below the surface of my own intellectual conceits to see if I was missing something. I’d enjoyed the Vacation pictures, but never considered them to be particularly memorable or profound. On the other hand, the Griswolds clearly represented certain real-life American archetypes, and were no more or less dysfunctional than the Kennedy, Bush or Simpson families.

“Clark, Ellen, Rusty, Audrey and Cousin Eddie all have a mini-story of their own in the film,” observed one student. “Each shows a different side of Vegas.”

Another picked up on the irony, “The father, who fancied himself as a real gambler, had no luck at all, while his underage son could not lose.”

While such pictures as Casino, The Cooler and both versions of Ocean’s 11 focused primarily on one or two aspects of life in Las Vegas, Vegas Vacation managed to touch all the bases. At the velocity the Griswolds pin-balled their way from the casinos and showrooms of the Strip, to the gentlemen’s clubs, trailer parks and Hoover Dam of greater Clark County, it was impossible for the audience to get bored. The writers had obviously done their homework, and gotten great access from normally up-tight casino owners.

The director and cinematographer also seemed to have fallen in love with the location. With its neon rainbow of colors and veritable smorgasbord of flashy images, Las Vegas must have presented them with an especially delicious challenge.

Released in 1997, at about the same time the ill-conceived “family Vegas” marketing campaign was abandoned for good, Vegas Vacation inadvertently managed to capture an important moment in time. It was that period when the city ceased being known solely as a hot and dusty haven for retirees and international tourists, and began evolving into one of the world’s hippest and most diverse destinations the young, moneyed set. The Hard Rock had just opened, and, soon, the Bellagio, Venetian and New York-New York, Paris and Palms would arrive to speed the reversal in demographic trends.

Elisa Bell, who shared writing credits with her friend, Bob Ducsay, was surprised to hear that Vegas Vacation had struck such a chord with college-age students, most of whom could only have seen the movie in its television or video afterlife. The USC School of Cinema-Television grad had been a frequent visitor to Las Vegas, but her purpose in writing the script was simply to extend the Vacation brand for Warner Bros., not comment on marketing strategies.

The studio simply wanted suggestions on the Griswolds’ next family trip. Bell and Ducsay came up with the Vegas angle – and most of the storyline – while heading north to Santa Barbara, by car, in 1996. When they brought their idea to Warners’ head of production Bill Gerber, he insisted they immediately pitch Chevy Chase, by phone, and he loved the idea. They left Gerber’s office with a deal.

As part of their research Bell and Ducsay spent two weeks in Las Vegas, playing tourist, on Warners’ dime. The basic Vacation template had already been laid out for them.

“We wanted to see how much trouble the Griswolds could get into, not just on the Strip, but in all the funny touristy places, both widely known and unknown outside the city,” recalled Bell, who wrote the screenplays for the upcoming comedies Sleepover and Little Black Book. “That’s why we had them visit the marshmallow, chocolate and cranberry factories, as well as the Hoover Dam and Debbie Reynolds museums.”

Their original conceit had Clark struggling to convince the rest of the Griswolds that Las Vegas was “all about family fun now,” and there would be much more to do at a new Wally World Casino than sit around the pool or gamble, which is how he intended to spend his time. WB executive didn’t want to spring for an elaborate casino set, so the Wally World idea was abandoned early on. In another reference to Part I in the series, the writers wanted Christie Brinkley to play an actual pool waitress at the hotel.

Bell, the mother of a 3-year-old son, doesn’t get to Las Vegas much, anymore, but she has fond memories of the shoot. She remembers all the work it took to get Siegfried & Roy to appear in the movie, and still gets a giggle from the thought of Wayne Newton hitting on Ellen, and Cousin Eddie cooking meat on a hot stone outside his trailer.

Executives with WB's home-video division, who also were a bit surprised to hear of my class's respect for their catalogue title, also are giggling. Vegas Vacation, which grossed about $36 million in its theatrical release, has become one of the unit's best-selling comedies, having shipped nearly 2 million units..

“There’s a museum in Las Vegas, although I can’t recall which one, that asked for a copy of the script of ‘Vegas Vacation,’ Bell said. “I guess that makes us part of the city’s history.”

Sure, why not? It certainly did more for tourism than Leaving Las Vegas and Showgirls.

If I can convince the writers to visit my class next year, perhaps I’ll become as beloved at UNLV as Robert Donat’s Mr. Chips, Sidney Portier’s Mark Thackeray and Robin Williams’ John Keating were at their schools. Whether I’ll ever be asked to freelance for Sight and Sound is another question entirely.

- by Gary Dretzka

May 21, 2004


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