Dana Hill brought emotional realism to young dramatic characters and energy to animated ones. Her work deserves a better introduction than National Lampoon's European Vacation, which gives a willing performer too little to do.
Fi1m perspective
In National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985), Dana Hill's Audrey Griswold is a willing participant in a comedy that gives her little to work with. Amy Heckerling keeps the humour broad, while Hill and Jason Lively, playing Rusty Griswold, seem ready for something more particular to these children. The screenplay keeps finding foreign habits more interesting than the family it has sent abroad. We were frustrated: the jokes were predictable, and the performers' readiness made that predictability harder to forgive.
Her breakthrough came with the television film Fallen Angel (1981) and Alan Parker's Shoot the Moon (1982). In the latter, she played Sherry Dunlap alongside Diane Keaton and Albert Finney, bringing emotional realism to a daughter in a family drama. That performance gives us a better reason to seek her out than Audrey does. Cross Creek (1983), directed by Martin Ritt, followed, with Hill playing Ellie Turner.
The problem with European Vacation is shared across the cast, with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo also supplying more goodwill than the material earns. That matters when judging Hill: Audrey's thin characterisation leaves little room to assess what the actor could bring to a properly written part. The stop-start storytelling does nobody any favours. There is enough effort here to make us regret the writing, not enough invention in the comedy to make the film worth recommending.
From the mid-1980s, Hill worked primarily in animation, supplying energetic voices for young male characters. Her parts included Max Goof in Goof Troop (1992) and Jerry in Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992). The latter comes with a casting reservation: some critics found the voices mismatched to the familiar characters, a useful caution against treating Hill's energy as sufficient reason to recommend it. Start with Shoot the Moon; Audrey can wait.
Biography
Dana Hill (born Dana Lynne Goetz) was an American actress and voice actress. She was born on 6 May 1964 in Los Angeles, California, and died on 15 July 1996 in Burbank, California. She played Audrey Griswold in the 1985 film National Lampoon's European Vacation.
Hill appeared in films including Shoot the Moon (1982) and Cross Creek (1983). She provided voices for animated projects such as Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992) and the series Goof Troop. She won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her stage performance in Picnic.
