National Lampoon's Animal House

National Lampoon's Animal House is a 1978 American comedy film directed by John Landis and written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller. It stars John Belushi, Peter Riegert, Tim Matheson, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Thomas Hulce, Stephen Furst, and Donald Sutherland. The film is about a trouble-making fraternity whose members challenge the authority of the dean of the fictional Faber College.

The film was produced by Matty Simmons of National Lampoon and Ivan Reitman for Universal Pictures. It was inspired by stories written by Miller and published in National Lampoon. The stories were based on Ramis's experience in the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Washington University in St. Louis, Miller's Alpha Delta Phi experiences at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and producer Reitman's at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Of the younger lead actors, only the 28-year-old Belushi was an established star, but even he had not yet appeared in a film, having gained fame as an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, which was in its third season in autumn 1977. Several of the actors who were cast as college students, including Hulce, Karen Allen, and Kevin Bacon, were just beginning their film careers. Matheson, also cast as a student, was already a seasoned actor, having appeared in movies for over ten years.

Filming took place in Oregon from October to December 1977. Following its initial release on July 28, 1978, Animal House received generally mixed reviews from critics, but Time and Roger Ebert proclaimed it one of the year's best. Filmed for only $3 million, it garnered an estimated gross of more than $141 million in the form of theatrical rentals and home video, not including merchandising, making it the highest grossing comedy film of its time.

The film, along with 1977's The Kentucky Fried Movie, also directed by Landis, was largely responsible for defining and launching the gross out film genre, which became one of Hollywood's staples. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed Animal House "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was No. 1 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It was No. 36 on AFI's "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list of the 100 best American comedies. In 2008, Empire magazine selected it as No. 279 of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time".

Plot

In fall 1962, Faber College freshmen Larry Kroger and Kent Dorfman seek to pledge a fraternity. After they are unable to fit in at the prestigious Omega Theta Pi house's party, Kent suggests they visit the Delta Tau Chi house next door as he is a "legacy" and cannot be turned down because his older brother Fred was a member. John "Bluto" Blutarsky welcomes them and they meet other Deltas including Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day, Chapter President Robert Hoover, Eric "Otter" Stratton, and Otter's best friend Donald "Boon" Schoenstein and girlfriend Katy. Kroger and Dorfman are invited to pledge and Bluto, Delta's sergeant-at-arms, gives them their fraternity names ("Pinto" and "Flounder" respectively).

Dean Vernon Wormer wants to remove the Deltas who are already on probation due to various campus conduct violations and an abysmal academic standing. Invoking his emergency authority, he places Delta on "double-secret probation" and directs Omega president Greg Marmalard to find a method to permanently remove Delta. Various incidents further increase the Dean's and the Omegas' animosity toward the Deltas, including the prank-related accidental death of a horse belonging to Omega member and ROTC Cadet Commander Douglas C. Neidermeyer as well as Otter flirting with Marmalard's girlfriend, Mandy Pepperidge.

Bluto and D-Day steal the answers to an upcoming test from the trash, unaware that the Omegas have switched the mimeograph negative for the exam. The Deltas all fail and their grade-point averages drop so low that Wormer tells them he needs only one more incident to revoke their charter. To cheer themselves up, the Deltas organize a toga party and bring in Otis Day and the Knights to provide live music. Wormer's wife Marion attends at Otter's invitation. Pinto hooks up with Clorette, a cashier he meets at the supermarket. They make out until she passes out drunk. Pinto takes her home in a shopping cart and discovers she is the mayor's under-age daughter.

Outraged by Marion's escapades and with the mayor threatening personal violence, Wormer organizes a hearing and revokes Delta's charter. To clear their heads, Otter, Boon, Flounder, and Pinto go on a road trip in Fred's car. Otter picks up four young women from the Emily Dickinson College as dates for himself and fellow Deltas by posing as Frank Lymon, the fiancé of a college student who died in a recent kiln explosion. They stop at a roadhouse bar where The Knights are performing, ignoring its exclusively African-American clientele. A couple of hulking patrons intimidate the Deltas, who flee, abandoning their dates and damaging their car.

Later, Marmalard and other Omegas lure Otter to a motel and beat him up after Mandy's best friend Barbara Sue "Babs" Jansen fabricates an affair between Mandy and Otter. Due to the Deltas' dismal midterm grade, Wormer ecstatically expels them, having already notified their local draft boards that they have lost their student deferments and are now eligible for military service. After Bluto rallies the despondent Deltas with an impassioned speech, they decide to get revenge on Wormer, the Omegas, and the college at the annual homecoming parade. D-Day converts Fred's damaged car into an armored vehicle, which they conceal inside a cake-shaped breakaway float and sneak into the parade. The Deltas then sabotage all aspects of the parade and drive through the viewing stand. As chaos ensues, the futures of several of the characters are revealed: most of the Deltas become respectable professionals while the Omegas and the other adversaries suffer less fortunate outcomes: Neidermeyer being killed in Vietnam by his own troops, and Marmalard becoming an aide to President Nixon and getting raped in prison in 1974.

Cast

• John Belushi as John "Bluto" Blutarsky
• Tim Matheson as Eric "Otter" Stratton
• Peter Riegert as Donald "Boon" Schoenstein
• Tom Hulce as Lawrence "Pinto" Kroger
• Stephen Furst as Kent "Flounder" Dorfman
• Bruce McGill as Daniel "D-Day" Simpson Day
• James Widdoes as Robert Hoover
• Karen Allen as Katy
• James Daughton as Gregory Marmalard
• Mark Metcalf as Douglas C. Neidermeyer
• Kevin Bacon as Chip Diller
• Mary Louise Weller as Mandy Pepperidge
• Martha Smith as Barbara "Babs" Sue Jansen
• John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer
• Verna Bloom as Mrs. Marion Wormer
• Donald Sutherland as Prof. Dave Jennings
• Cesare Danova as Mayor Carmine DePasto
• Sarah Holcomb as Clorette DePasto
• DeWayne Jessie as Otis Day
• Douglas Kenney as Dwayne "Stork" Storkman
• Christian Miller as Curtis "Hardbar" Wayne Fuller