Chevy Chase: Cut to the Chase

Since the critics usually attack your films, how would you like a chance to rank what you've done on a scale of 1-10?

I'd give Deal of the Century a five.

**Glad you're playing. What about your first film, Foul Play?**

Everybody seems to like Foul Play, so I'm beginning to think it's a good movie, but at the time I didn't think so. I was very much against them making me fall off the pier into the water for the good old days. I never got over that. I was so pissed about it. I suppose the highest I could go on that is a seven.

Weren't you involved with Goldie Hawn at that time?

Most people who knew us back then knew that we were romantically involved. Particularly during the making of Foul Play. But obviously that changed. Nothing went sour, we just went our separate ways. But yeah, we were very much in love at the time. Very infatuated.

Have you considered working together again in a similar kind of film?

People talk to me and Goldie over the years about doing another similar picture, but I think she would prefer to work with Kurt [Russell]. I mean, I love her and I think we work great together but there haven't been any scripts that have come to both of us. Now that she's at Disney and I'm at Warners I don't see how that's going to happen.

**Back to your rating your films. What about Seems Like Old Times?**

Six. It was kind of the last of those Neil Simon-type pictures that worked and it was great to work with Neil and his lines. I don't think people have the patience for that kind of thing.

Oh, Heavenly Dog!

CHASE: Benji was hot. It was an opportunity to work with a dog. I never saw the picture. I'd give it a two.

Modern Problems.

CHASE: I'd give that a one. There were too many drugs in Modern Problems.

Weren't you almost electrocuted in that?

Yeah. It was awful. I had a scene in which I was to be wired as a landing airplane in a dream sequence and the special effects people had devised it so that these lights would go over my shirt. The director felt that wasn't right, and that it should go under the shirt and attach to my skin. We were all a little nervous about that. They turned on the juice and I just was getting electrocuted and they thought I was kidding, screaming and yelling, "Turn it off!" In fact it was real and I fainted. The paramedics came. I was almost killed, according to the doctor. The burns were to the muscles in my shoulders, arms and back. I was weak for a long time.

**How do you feel about Caddyshack?**

There were too many drugs in that too, but that wasn't a problem. The more I've seen it over the years, the less I thought it was a good picture. I really liked Billy's [Murray] performance, and Ted Knight's. Rodney's just Rodney, not a good actor obviously. It's up there at six or seven.

**Under the Rainbow?**

I met my wife then. She was working as production coordinator. First picture I made $2 million on. It was just a fiasco. Awfully funny script, but it changed.

**The first Vacation?**

I'd give that an eight. I always thought that was one of my best. It had a wonderful spirit and charm and it was so much fun to make.

**The first Fletch?**

CHASE: A six. It made use of me in a way films hadn't -- it showed a more serious side, an ability to behave and act like a detective.

**The second Fletch?**

CHASE: A four.

European Vacation?

I rate it low. It opened bigger than any of my other films because of the expectation after the first one.

**Spies Like Us?**

CHASE: I forgot about that. That was all right, a five or six. I had to work with [John] Landis.

**That was after the tragedy with the deaths of the children and Vic Morrow on Twilight Zone--the Movie. Was Landis, who directed that segment, affected when you worked with him?**

He was affected, but not able to show it very well. If anything, it should have changed the way he dealt with people but it didn't. He's a bit of a bully, to say the least, with the wrong people, the easy shots. He's got a crassness about him. Anybody who can pick on a set decorator or an extra in front of everybody else in a very mean way is lacking something. I would think that an experience like Twilight Zone--the Movie would put some humility into your life. But it didn't.

Landis also directed you, Steve Martin, and Martin Short in Three Amigos!

That was great fun. I put that right up there with Vacation. Landis and his egoism cut out a lot of the funniest, best stuff of that picture. It could have been cut better. But Steve and Marty, we have Amigo dinners all the time. We became best friends in that.

**You had a small part in Caddyshack II.**

A bit part for less than a million bucks. I had nothing to do with it. I just went in for a week and shot my stuff. Had no idea how bad the movie was. That was just a horrible picture. That's down at zero.

**Funny Farm?**

I rank it pretty high, though there's not much to the picture. It's a funny movie. My dad was very upset about the picture. He felt that it made no use of what is intrinsically indigenous and good about what I do. George Roy Hill just did not want me to mug in any way. He wanted pure, real acting and he felt it would be funnier because of that. I learned less is more in some cases, but I was also fighting him the whole way. Ultimately the picture came out dull because it lacked the things that I do give to a movie that people do expect.

**And your latest, Christmas Vacation?**

It has a different look and feel and I'm quite good in it, so I'd have to rank it high. I had a lot to do with it and I chose the director, who is a first-time director. But it's not Moby Dick. It's what I've been sort of forced into doing over the years. It's only there to make you laugh, it's not a particularly deep movie.

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