The Great Outdoors (film)

The Great Outdoors
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Howard Deutch
Written by	John Hughes
Produced by	John Hughes Arne Schmidt
Starring	Dan Aykroyd John Candy
Cinematography	Ric Waite
Edited by	Seth Flaum William D. Gordean Tom Rolf
Music by	Thomas Newman
Production company	Hughes Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	June 17, 1988 (1988-06-17)
Running time	90 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$24 million
Box office	$43.4 million

The Great Outdoors is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Howard Deutch, and written and produced by John Hughes. It stars Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Stephanie Faracy and Annette Bening in her film debut. The film follows two families spending time on vacation in Wisconsin.

Plot[]

Chicagoan Chester "Chet" Ripley (John Candy), his wife Connie (Stephanie Faracy), and their two sons, Buckley "Buck" and Ben, are vacationing at a lake resort in Pechoggin, Wisconsin, for the summer. All goes as planned until Connie's sister, Kate (Annette Bening), her investment broker husband, Roman Craig (Dan Aykroyd), and their mostly-silent twin daughters, Mara and Cara, unexpectedly arrive uninvited.

Ghost stories after the family BBQ include one of a man-eating grizzly bear that Chet met directly when he was younger. Chet says that while he and Connie were honeymooning at the same lake, he was attacked by a giant grizzly bear (Bart the Bear). When he fired at it with a shotgun, the buckshot shaved the hair off the top of the bear's head and from then on, it was known as the "Bald-Headed Bear" of Clare County.

After Roman pulls Chet around the lake on an impromptu water ski ride with his rented speedboat, tensions between the families erupt. Chet is ready to pack up and go home, even as his teenage son Buck tries to romance a local girl, Cammie. The budding romance goes well until Chet is challenged to eat a 96-ounce steak called "the Old 96'er" at a family dinner which causes Buck to break their date. Buck tries to apologize to Cammie for being late, but Cammie refuses to speak to him.

Connie and Kate bond at a local bar when the conversation drifts to Kate's feelings of loneliness with Roman despite their wealth. Later, just at the peak of tension between families, Roman tells of the time at his and Kate's wedding when he overheard a conversation between Chet and their father-in-law describing how they think Roman is a crooked businessman. Roman then tells Chet why he came up to visit: to offer Chet a $25,000 investment opportunity. Chet, feeling guilty from the wedding story, is initially reluctant, but eventually agrees to write Roman a check for the whole amount. The families say their goodbyes and Roman and his family head back to Chicago. On the car ride home, Kate praises Roman for including Chet in the investment, noting that $25,000 is a lot of money for them. Roman, now feeling guilty himself, halts the car and returns to the cabin.

Upon his return, Roman confesses that the story about the wedding conversation never happened and that he is broke from some failed investments. His true intention for coming up to the lake was to solicit money from Chet to financially recover. During a thunderstorm, Kate discovers the twins have gone missing. Chet and Roman find them at the bottom of an old mine shaft, but the claustrophobic Roman is reluctant to descend into the tiny space. After some encouragement from Chet, Roman reluctantly climbs down into the mine, while Chet searches for a rope to pull them out. Upon realizing that the mine is stocked with old dynamite, Roman takes his daughters and escapes the shaft on his own.

Upon returning with the rope, Chet is horrified to discover the "Bald-Headed Bear" lurking in the mine. It chases him back to the cabin, smashes through the door, and rampages through the house. Wally, the cabin owner, bursts in with a loaded shotgun while Roman tries to hold off the animal with a fireplace poker and an oar. Chet takes the gun and shoots the bear, blowing the fur off its rear. Roaring in pain, the bear runs out of the house. The next morning, the families part on amicable terms. Unbeknownst to Chet, Connie has invited the Craigs to stay with them until they can recover. Cammie accepts Buck's apologies and they end their brief romance, as the Ripleys return to Chicago.

In a post-credits scene, a family of raccoons (who rummaged through the trash cans throughout the film) discovers the bear sitting in the lake, embarrassed due to being "bald on both ends".

Cast[]

John Candy and Dan Aykroyd during production of The Great Outdoors in October 1987.

• Dan Aykroyd as Roman Craig, Kate's husband
• John Candy as Chester "Chet" Ripley, Connie's husband
• Stephanie Faracy as Connie Ripley, Kate's sister
• Annette Bening as Kate "Katie" Craig, Connie's sister
• Robert Prosky as Wally
• Chris Young as Buckley "Buck" Ripley, Chet and Connie's older son
• Ian Giatti as Benjamin "Benny" Ripley, Chet and Connie's younger son
• Hilary Gordon and Rebecca Gordon as Cara and Mara Craig, Roman and Kate's twin daughters
• Lucy Deakins as Cammie
• Bart the Bear as the Bald-Headed Bear
• Lewis Arquette as Herm
• Britt Leach as Reg, man who has been struck by lightning 66 times, then 67.

Filming[]

Filming locations[]

The film was shot on location in Bass Lake, California, a small resort town near Sierra National Forest over three weeks in October 1987.^[1] Ducey's Bass Lake Lodge, a rustic 1940s resort, was featured as Wally and Juanita's Perk's Pine Lodge. The Loon's Nest vacation cabin, built on the backlot at Universal Studios,^[2] was designed to match the style of Ducey's existing cabins.

Production[]

The film was shot under the working title "Big Country", but was changed to avoid confusion with Big, which was due to come out at the same time.^[3]

In the original John Hughes script, Roman's redemption came through a daring rescue of his twin girls who had caught a giant fish that towed them around the lake in a small rowboat. A mechanical fish was built for the film, but when it could not be made to work correctly, the script was re-written around the legend of the bald-headed bear and the chase in the final act.^[4]

Reception[]

The Great Outdoors earned a mixed response from critics.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times reported that the film did not have enough collective energy to light a campfire in her review.^[5] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film as "a crass, blah comedy about summer vacation perils" and said he was surprised the film got made at all. He described the end credits sequence where Aykroyd and Candy dance to Wilson Pickett's "Land of a Thousand Dances" as the only genuine fun and energy in the entire film.^[6] "Imagine that it's raining cats and dogs and you're locked in a north woods cabin for weeks with the people you like least, and you'll pretty much have a feel for what it's like to sit through this movie," said Hal Hinson of The Washington Post.^[7]

Box office[]

The film grossed $6,121,115 in its opening weekend and ended up with a North American domestic box office gross of $41,455,230, and a worldwide gross of $43,455,230.^[8][9]

Soundtrack[]

A soundtrack for the film was released by Atlantic Records in 1988 and featured many of the songs used in the film.

Reboot and sequel[]

On April 27, 2017, Universal Pictures that announced a reboot of the film starring Kevin Hart and produced by Michael De Luca was in development.^[10]

In a November 2, 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Aykroyd said that he was working on a sequel with Deutch titled The Great Outlaws that would "bring back Roman as a Ponzi scheme guy who victimizes a federal agent." In the interview, Aykroyd also said that he "looking for the Candy figure" to cast in the film.^[11]

References[]

External links[]

• The Great Outdoors at IMDb
• The Great Outdoors at the TCM Movie Database
• The Great Outdoors at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Great Outdoors at AllMovie