Retrospective: National Lampoon Goes to the Movies (1982)

[Jerry Saravia]

NATIONAL LAMPOON GOES TO THE MOVIES (1982)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Zero Stars

Comedy is subjective. Some people find Mel Brooks hysterical, others
not so much. But I cannot imagine a single soul finding anything of
comedic value in "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies" which is the
worst comedy I've ever seen. Let me make that painstakingly clear once
more: it is the WORST COMEDY I'VE EVER SEEN. EVER. In the history of
the comedy genre, nothing is WORSE than this movie. NOT ONE!

Let me make things even clearer. When a studio bankrolls a movie
project, usually there is hope that money will be made, even if the
film is garbage. However, I do honestly believe, having read several
behind-the-scenes books on filmmaking, that everyone involved does it
give their best shot and hopes for the best. I do not believe this was
the case with "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies, not at all. I
don't believe that directors Henry Jaglom (who has made good films)
and Bob Giraldi had any intention of making anything worthwile. I will
go so far as to say that if anyone ever directly asked Jaglom or
Giraldi of their intentions with this film, they would concur that,
yes, they intended to make a worthless pile of horse manure, with
extra steam rising from it to stink up any theatre showing it within a
five mile radius.

But let's give a brief rundown of everything that goes wrong from the
start. The opening segment entitled "Personal Growth" (and presumably
a parody of "Kramer vs. Kramer") has Peter Riegert as a corporate
lawyer who throws his wife out of the house (thanklessly played by
Candy Clark). The reason? It is time for her to grow, although they
are reasonably happily married. The movie sets off on the wrong foot
of cinematic ineptitude when Riegert packs up a suitcase for his wife,
with everything she presumably owns, including her Tampax. Everything
just barely fits in the suitcase. How is that funny? Riegert doesn't
fret over not being able to close the suitcase or drop it with
everything flying out of the suitcase like a bomb went off - he
succeeds admirably. What if the suitcase was the size of a room and
everything she owned just barely fit in there (like her wardrobe?) Or
what if he thought so little of her that he packed a wallet-size
suitcase that just barely fit her toothbrush?

This segment plays it straight with no jokes at all, none. An
apartment full of plants is not funny. A child left behind on a fire
engine is not funny. A woman kidnapping a boy in a New York City bus
is not funny. The movie assumes it is funny without a single punchline
or joke. The best it can do is to show big breasts and that, my
friends, is not automatically funny. There are more laughs when Dustin
Hoffman was trying to make French Toast in "Kramer vs. Kramer" than in
this segment.

The next parodic segment is even worse. I'll only mention the second
segment because I could not make it through the third. It is called
"Success Wanters" (presumably a parody of Harold Robbins and TV's
"Dallas") and it has a stripteaser (Ann Dusenberry) who is raped by
businessmen who yell something along the lines of "Butter Bang!" Yes,
Virginia, she is raped with sticks of butter! Sorry Miss Virginia! And
to make matters worse, she takes over the margarine business (!) by
giving head to the head of the margarine corporation (Robert Culp).
Eventually this all leads to tasteless one-liners involving incest,
heavy bracelets that can cause turbulence in a plane (Don't ask) and
margarine sticks that are dropped on the floor of the margarine plant
and put back on the conveyor belt for consumption. Yeah, funny.

"National Lampoon Goes to the Movies" is more than just a painfully
unfunny comedy - it made me sick and sad for the human race that such
garbage ever got recorded on celluloid. It gave me pain to watch it,
and left me in such despair that I could not suffer through another
segment of this shite (even the knowledge that Richard Widmark appears
in the third segment makes me sadder). There are only three other
films that I've ever stopped watching because of such pain - this
National Lampoon film can safely be added to the list. This is not a
recommendation.

Footnote: The other three films I could not sit through were
"Caligula," "P.K. and the Kid" and "The Stupids."

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