Actress Beverly D’Angelo, one of the stars of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” recently admitted that one of the film’s most iconic scenes was kind of unscripted.
“One of the film’s most memorable visuals occurs towards the end, when a police officer instructs everyone partaking in the Griswold family Christmas [dinner] to freeze,” according to Forbes.
At that moment, D’Angelo decided to grab the crotch of her co-star, Chevy Chase.
“It was not in the script for me to guard the family jewels when the police came to stick us up,” the actress recently told Fox News. “I threw that in. That was definitely improvised. That was my little touch. All in one take.”
Speaking with Forbes a couple of years ago, D’Angelo expounded further on what had left up to that moment.
“That was a hard day (on set),” she said. “There was a lot of stuff we had to get done. Some people were late on the set. I wasn’t. And at a certain point, I said to the director, ‘Look, I’m not in any of this stuff. Can I just go home? Chevy’s in his trailer. If we’re not going to— do I have to be here?’”
“He goes, ‘No, no, no. We need you.’ And he was shooting these little transition shots, and he used a video camera. … And I went to the video playback, and all I could see was the back of my head. And I went to him, and I said, ‘Come on. I can see I’m not in this. Give me a break,’” she added.
“And what he was trying to do was make his day. He was under pressure from the studio. You’re behind. Anyway, Chevy appears. We start scrambling, and it was the end of the day. And there was hardly any time to shoot anything. And so I said to Chevy, ‘Okay, listen, here’s what I want to do. We’ve only got one take at this. So when they say ‘Freeze’, I’m going to put my hand down like I’m protecting the family jewels. Is that okay?’” she continued.
Chase was a bit hesitant about the idea at first.
“He went, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Well, you can’t do that,’” D’Angelo recalled. “I guarantee you no one’s going to be looking at my hand. Everybody’s going to be looking at your face and Randy (Quaid)’s face and the expressions. I’m going to be way down below your waist. And the director’s not even looking at me. He’s just trying to get you guys good, get this take.”
The convincing worked.
“And so we did it,” she said. “That’s a wrap for the day. And I had to stay in it because that was the only shot that they had. But here’s what’s funny. It’s true, when you first look at it, you aren’t looking at what I’m doing down there. But now that people have really big screens, they’re noticing these details that weren’t apparent.”
It’s an indisputable fact that Beverly D’Angelo was always funnier than Chevy Chase. This shot in Christmas Vacation where she improvised grabbing Chase’s crotch is to this day the funniest bit of improvised physical comedy I’ve ever seen. pic.twitter.com/0ZyMCSCgs6
— John Patrick Hale (@Nthdayoncaprica) May 1, 2020
D’Angelo noted to Fox News that what she did ultimately made sense.
“Well, what would you do in that situation?” she asked. “You would guard the family jewels, first and foremost.”
Wink, wink.
She also revealed to Fox News that she and Chase became lifelong friends from working together.
“I knew from the beginning I’d have a lifelong friendship with Chevy,” she said. “It was just like meeting a brother. We’ve kept that connection all the way, decades later. I just had a feeling when we met that we would be a tribe. I can’t explain it, except there’s just something about when Chevy and I get together.”
“There’s a chemistry we can create. We have a chemistry, we get each other. And then, we can easily flip into Clark and Ellen. It’s just something. I can’t explain it. It doesn’t happen with anybody else. He makes me Ellen, and I make him Clark when we work together. It’s very natural. We just know,” she added.
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