Cinefile

Chevy Chase returns as Clark Griswald in Warners’ “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” next March. Beverly D’Angelo is also back in Julianne Gavin’s screenplay, which finds the couple besieged by in-laws during the holiday season. Matty Simmons produces; commercial director Jeremiah Chechik makes his big-screen debut . . .

George C. Scott takes a menacing pose as the villainous Big Boy in Warren Beatty’s “Dick Tracy,” filming for Disney in March. Michael J. Pollard also is cast as a mug. The Bo Goldman script succeeds versions by such writers as Elaine May, Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr. and Floyd Mutrux. . . .

Newcomers Frank Whaley and Chrissie Harnos star in HandMade’s “Cold Dog Soup,” to film locally this month. Thomas Pope adapted (and co-produces) novelist Stephen Dobyns’ bizarre yarn of a young man whose passion leads him on an all-night quest to bury a dead dog. Randy Quaid plays an off-beat cabbie and Alan Metter directs . . .

Shock comic Andrew Dice Clay makes a splashy film debut as a hip rock ‘n’ roll detective in Silver Pictures’ “Ford Fairlane,” rolling in April for Fox. A mysterious case of murder in the music industry in Jay Cappe and David Arnault’s script for producer Joel Silver. . . . Herald-Ex sportswriter/Seoul food critic Allan Malamud plays the small but pivotal role of a piano store owner in “The Fabulous Baker Boys.” He sells a piano to the movie’s bargain-basement Ferrante and Teicher--Jeff and Beau Bridges. . . .

Ron Moler and Jeff Lurie produce the Tracey Ullman-Kevin Kline murder-comedy “I Love You to Death,” filming in April. Ron Kostmeyer wrote the screenplay and Lawrence Kasden directs. . . .

SI Leonard Klady