The Review: Caddyshack (1980)

The end of the 1970s were a tumultuous time as America emerged from a decade of soaring inflation, political unrest, Watergate and Vietnam.

By 1980, Ronald Reagan had won office and movie-going audiences were primed for a more cheeky and optimistic era of consumerism, MTV and Spielberg blockbusters. This proved to be the ideal cultural backdrop for Harold Ramis to make his directorial debut with Caddyshack (1980).

Ramis was already an established writer with credits that included National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and so proved to be a natural choice to direct a film that had been pitched to the studio as ‘Animal House on a golf course’. Even better, the script would be adapted from source material provided by writer and co-star Brian Doyle-Murray who based

it on his memories of caddying at a local golf club. His brother Bill Murray and Ramis himself had also been caddies as teenagers.

The original story conceived by Brian Doyle-Murray was intended as a coming-of-age drama about a couple of young caddies finding their way in the grown-up world of an elite golf club. However the involvement of Ramis along with Rodney Dangerfield and Saturday Night Live alumni Bill Murray and Chevy Chase ensured it would become more of a comedic ensemble piece.

The result is a movie with no singular plot, it’s really a collection of storylines. Mind you it’s no Magnolia (1999) or Pulp Fiction (1994) with carefully crafted parallel narratives all interconnecting at critical moments, Ramis along with producers Douglas Kenney and Jon Peters created more of a loosely connected set of comedy sketches.

The central character – if there is one – would be caddie Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe). Danny’s role tends more towards passive audience-proxy rather than proactive protagonist. We see him bouncing around with little agency as his focus is constantly deflected by the big personalities of the movie.

These include country club bigshot Judge Smails (Ted Knight), the handsome new age club member Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), the unhinged gopher-obsessed green keeper Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) and of course the mile-a-minute motor mouth of uncouth property developer Al Czervik played by a scene stealing Rodney Dangerfield.

Among Danny’s peers there’s some enthusiastic performances from Sarah Holcomb as love interest Maggie, seductress Lacey Underall played by Cindy Morgan and Scott Colomby doing a decent disco-era Travolta impression as rival caddie Tony D’Annunzio.

In its initial rough cut, the film ran to over four hours and presumably all the various interplays and sub plots between these characters were teased out to their tedious conclusions, but after some aggressive editing the film was tightened to just 98 minutes of inscrutable character interactions that serve as mere scaffolding on which the big stars play out their comedic set pieces.

IS IT A GOLF MOVIE?

Some might say Caddyshack is the quintessential golf movie. Perhaps it has a more realistic claim as the best golf comedy, although Happy Gilmore (1996) would have many supporters aggressively disputing that.

What’s clear is that Caddyshack has been more successful than any other golf movie in penetrating the mainstream consciousness of non-golf movie goers.

Caddyshack is to golf movies what Hoover is to vacuums, it may no longer be the best, but it remains the brand name that defines the category.

The taglines used to promote Caddyshack play into the non-golf audience’s perception of what a golf movie should be: there’s ‘Some people just don’t belong’ inferring country club elitism, similarly ‘The snobs versus the slogs’ riffs on the same theme. ‘A comedy with balls’ hints at the raunchy National Lampoon’s pedigree of the filmmakers, which was an incredibly successful franchise at the time.

Finally, the inclusion of massively popular comedians Murray, Chase and Dangerfield secured the movie’s broader appeal as more of a golf-themed comedy rather than a comedy-themed golf movie which would have been more niche.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?

The eternal question with Caddyshack is to consider why this low-budget celebration of juvenile 80s hijinks occupies such an elevated position in the pantheon of golf pop-culture.

There’s some energetic physical comedy from Ted Knight, but Smails is too unlikable to be uproariously funny. There’s the trademark rapid-fire one-liners and colourful presence of Dangerfield but these provide more shock value than cutting humour.

At some point the studio noticed the film’s two biggest stars Chevy Chase and Bill Murray didn’t share any scenes together and demanded this be fixed, as it turns out the hastily added sequence of Carl showing Ty around his ramshackle living quarters is perhaps the comedy high point of the film.

PHOTO: Getty Images.

For the most part the golf is clichéd, the editing is inconsistent, the Kenny Loggins soundtrack is corny as hell and the cinematography is little better than a home video, so why do people have such affection for this film?

Perhaps it’s because Caddyshack has some moments that seem full of potential. Murray’s famous Cinderella story monologue leaves you wanting more Carl Spackler. Murray and Chase’s shared scene begs for a buddy movie offshoot. Cindy Morgan as Lacey Underall seems like she should have been a big star.

In an early 2000s interview Harold Ramis says he regrets some of the compromises and decisions made in creating the movie, he feels like it could have been much better and if it wasn’t his first film as Director he might have addressed some of those issues during the production.

We as fans are probably guilty of imagining Caddyshack as a more fully realised film than it actually is. Our fond memories of the much-quoted scenes tend to mask the film’s various compromises and flaws.

If it’s been years since you’ve seen Caddyshack, perhaps it’s time to give it a fresh look. You may be surprised at how much you’ve forgotten – and you know why? Much of it is quite forgettable.

Between its long sequences of non-sensical chaos, Caddyshack has occasional moments of comedy gold. Be prepared though if you’re re-watching it with a companion lacking the nostalgia of seeing it in the ‘80s, you’ll try valiantly to hold their attention with frequent pleas of “hang on, there’s a good bit coming up”, but in the end don’t be surprised if it doesn’t explode their gopher.

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