![]() Pledges Pinto (Hulce) and Flounder (Furst) are good soldiers, making us laugh with their desire to fit in at first then, finally, to succumb to the madness and pillage and destroy with the other Deltas, led by Bluto (Belushi), who waylays all in his path. The laughs are all solid, especially when the main focus is in toppling the stoic pillars of decency and normality with a battle cry of "food fight!". This comedy is an unqualified classic by the simplest definition- it makes you laugh, long and loud.Įvery successful movie has its myriad clones and imitators, but none of them ever come close to what made the original so good. (Yes, you read it right.) The screenwriters and director John Landis did a great job evoking Kennedy-era America and they found a lot to laugh at. Also John Vernon set a standard for straight men with his portrayal of the beleaguered Dean Wormer, plagued by his "zoo fraternity." Not all of the movie's humor aims low, by any means some of it is quite sophisticated. Before Tom Hanks got "Big" he made a career out of playing this character. ![]() ![]() When a woman tells him that his lovemaking wasn't that great, he cocks his head, points a finger at himself and mouths the words, "not great?" in mock disbelief. Otter was the quintessential smooth talker, always working an angle on everybody, especially the ladies. Tim Matheson as "Otter" and his other frat house buddies were also prototypes that were much imitated too, and again often without success. His character of "Bluto" Blutarsky is often emulated and imitated but many times the persons doing so have no idea what it was that made him and his performance so great. John Belushi does give a bravura performance that is reminiscent of the great comics before him like Chaplin, Keaton (Buster, not Michael), the Marx Brothers, etc., and he does it with a wonderful economy of words. Some of the conventional wisdom about 'Animal House' is absolutely right, though. Instead, too often it is lumped in with the multitude of inferior films that it inspired, which is totally unfair. That's because it's often not recognized as the superior comedy classic that it is. You'll have to excuse me and some of the other proponents of 'National Lampoon's Animal House' if we seem a little defensive about the movie. They blazed a trail for what followed but this film got there first. Animal House has a messy, manic energy which its cast runs with as they know at least which direction they are heading. Used sparingly John Belushi gives the loudest and wildest performance as Bluto and it all ends up in chaos in a parade where the Deltas have a rogue float that causes havoc. In fact Tom Hanks very much copied Matheson's character in the 1980s. The screenplay and comedy was fresh for the time and the characters played by Tim Matheson, Peter Riegert, Tom Hulce have been imitated by others since then. Of course the Deltas will include almost anyone in their house and is a haven for misfits in contrast to the Omegas who are clean cut, smug, privileged as well as exclusive who will have nothing to do with people who are fat, ugly, poor or coloured. The film is set in the early 1960s as the college Dean Vernon Wormer wants to remove the Deltas from the campus due to repeated conduct violations and low academic achievement. There was American Graffiti a few years earlier but Animal House set a standard of frat pack comedies with tits and ass that we still see today with the American Pie films.
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