'Animal House' Back on Big Screen in August; Director John Landis Talks the Deltas' Dawn
John Belushi’s Bluto Blutarsky is a food fightin’ man in ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’ (Everett)
Here’s a Yahoo Movies exclusive that will make you want to kick your heels up and shout: The 1978 comedy classic National Lampoon’s Animal House is returning to theaters this summer as a new addition to the year-long TCM Big Screens Classics series overseen by Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events (buy tickets here). The gold standard for every collegiate comedy made since, Animal House is the rare period piece that still feels contemporary, with generation after generation of teenage moviegoers passing through the doors of Delta House, Faber College’s most hijinks-prone fraternity, where pranksters like John Belushi’s Bluto Blutarsky and Bruce McGill’s D-Day reign supreme.
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Sure, none of the Deltas carry cell phones or post beer pong pics to Instagram, but the movie’s evocation of that first taste of independence—and the hilariously futile and stupid gestures it inspires—is what still makes it resonate with college-bound viewers of all eras. “Animal House somehow captures that moment in peoples’ lives when you’re not really an adult, but you think you are,” director John Landis tells Yahoo Movies. “I cannot tell you how many thousands of people have come up to me and said, ‘That was my frat house!’”
Director John Landis, Bruce McGill, and John Belushi on the ‘Animal House’ set (Everett)
Back in ’78, of course, Landis had no idea that Animal House would achieve cinematic immortality. And, as he remembers, the executives at Universal definitely didn’t have high expectations for this low-budget comedy made by a largely new and untested cast and crew over the course of 30 days in Eugene, Oregon. Landis characterizes their first reaction to an early cut of the film as “not amused.” Fortunately, test audiences had a different reaction. “We had our first preview in Denver and it was extraordinary,” Landis says, chuckling. “It was raucous; they were tearing out the seats. At that point, the studio said, ‘OK…money!’ And everything was fine.”
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Although the movie itself revels in chaos, Landis remembers that everything was collegial behind the scenes. “There was a tremendous sense of camaraderie,” the director says. “We had some silly production problems, but nothing traumatic. John Belushi’s drug problems were non-existent at that time. He was shooting Saturday Night Live so we would have him [on set] for two days a week over the course of four weeks. He was full of energy—it was amazing to me.”
Tom Hulce lets his conscience–or lack of one–be his guide in ‘Animal House’ (Universal)
The cast’s bad behavior was instead saved for the screen, resulting in such classic moments as the cafeteria food fight and the sequence where Delta’s resident “nice guy,” Pinto (Tom Hulce), listens to the angel and devil on his shoulder debate the morality of making out with his date after she’s passed out. The latter scene in particular encapsulates Animal House’s envelope-pushing humor, which still has the capacity to shock almost 40 years later. It also illustrates the film’s influence on future generations of comedians, from the Farrelly Brothers to Seth Rogen, who included a similarly shocking scene in his cult 2009 comedy, Observe and Report. “It’s not the joke, it’s the way the joke is told,” Landis explains. “Things that are objectionable in some films may not be in others. Everything depends on context.”
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Scheduled for screenings on Aug. 14 and Aug. 17 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. both days, Animal House joins a 2016 Big Screen Classics line-up that includes crowd-pleasing favorites from the 1940s (The Maltese Falcon), ’60s (Planet of the Apes) and ’80s (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). And if you think that’s impressive company for the slovenly Deltas to be in, remember that Animal House also belongs to the prestigious National Film Registry maintained by the Library of Congress. “I’m mostly happy that TCM is putting it in theaters,” Landis says of his film’s latest revival. “Movies are meant to be seen on a large screen with many people. Fear and laughter are contagious.”
‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’: See some of its best scene snippets in promo for DVD edition: