MovieChat Forums > Saturday Night (2024) Discussion > The Real Dan Ackroyd Praises The Movie: ...

The Real Dan Ackroyd Praises The Movie: The Fictional Chevy Chase Gets Attacked IN the Movie

posted a month ago by roger1 (3617)
3 replies | jump to latest

For another time: I thought it was pretty good, with the usual "biopic problems" (and a LOT of people being "bio-picked), but I do notice this on first week;s release:

ONE: The Real Dan Ackroyd -- always a great cheerleader for all projects related to him, good for him -- sent out some sort of viral message praising the film highly and noting "I was there that night, that's how it was."

TWO: The Fictional Chevy Chase -- the one in the movie played by Cory Michael Smith -- is attacked, at length and viciously, in long speeches by two characters based on real guys: the Great JK Simmons as Milton Berle ("Mr. Television from the 50s" in the 70s) and Tracy Letts(also good, just not as famous as JK) as veteran SNL writer Herb Sargent.

Both characters tear into Chase and at least one of them predicts his REAL career rise and fall.

Methinks somebody out there wanted to get their revenge on however badly the REAL Chevy Chase treated people back in his SNL heyday.

Unlike as with Mr. Ackroyd, there has been no comment from Mr. Chase...yet.

[–] BuckleBilly (1107) 6 days ago

There's very little Dan Akroyd is involved with that he doesn't praise to high heaven.

It's part of the reason most people who work with him have such praise for him. Chevy Chase complained about Nothing but Trouble but came back to talk about how good Akroy is a s a person.

[–] roger1 (3617) 6 days ago

There's very little Dan Akroyd is involved with that he doesn't praise to high heaven.

---

Yeah. He's one of those good "cheerleader" stars -- now faded, but what a resume -- always good with an uplifting quote. Chevy Chase...not so much.

----

It's part of the reason most people who work with him have such praise for him. Chevy Chase complained about Nothing but Trouble but came back to talk about how good Akroyd is a s a person.

---

Well, there you go. One wonders, given the "mental demons" that haunted Chase for years (evidently some of his insults of others are almost a "Tourette's" scenario)...if Chase WISHED he could be as nice as Ackroyd.

Chase and Ackroyd made a better movie that "Nothing But Trouble" -- "Spies Like Us" under the direction of John Landis(who was still working but under a cloud after the "Twilight Zone" tragedy.) And therein lies a story.

At the end of the 80's, the two most successful movie stars at the box office were: Harrison Ford and Dan Ackroyd. Ford makes sense: three Indy Jones movies, two Star Wars movies, and some "stray hits" like Witness and Working Girl. (Blade Runner? Not so much.)

But ACKROYD? He had been funny on TV, but less so as a movie personality. Yet, looked at the OTHER SNL talents he worked with in the 80s:

1980: Belushi, The Blues Brothers. BIG HIT (by John Landis)
1981: Belushi, Neighbors (not such a big hit.)
1982 (Belushi dies of a drug overdose.)
1983: Eddie Murphy, Trading Places (and Ackroyd has top billing.)
1984: Ghostbusters (Ackroyd is OK, but Bill Murray -- in a role written for Belushi) rules the show.
1984: Ackroyd does a one scene cameo with -- Harrison Ford! -- in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
1985: Spies Like Us. (Chase and Ackroyd were funny together -- a bit like Hope and Crosby and Bob Hope actually APPEARS in the film.)
1989: Ghostbusters II with Murray again.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3617) 5 days ago

Ackroyd could do no wrong that decade.

He headlined the lousy "Doctor Detroit" in 1983, but landed the very sexy and hot Donna Dixon from the cast(he played an amateur pimp) and they stayed married for decades. They revently announced that they have split -- but will not divorce.

And he took a small supporting role in "Driving Miss Daisy" for a cut of the film. He made big money AND he got an Oscar nom.

The 80s were a helluva decade for "nice" Dan Ackroyd -- riding the coattails of funnier SNL stars and lucking into Donna Dixon and an Oscar nom.