Caddyshack [25]

Caddyshack is the greatest golf movie of all time. The quotes and situations from that movie were already ingrained piecemeal into our culture. This movie managed to gather them all into a microcosm of all golf clubs. Any other golf movie runs a risk of unintentionally crossing an area that was covered by Caddyshack.

Tiger Woods has admitted to Dan Patrick on ESPN that he has thought about “being the ball.” Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura dared to ask the most important question he could imagine of the Dalai Lama himself, whether he had seen the movie. Every day, someone on a golf course is saying “nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh” as they traverse the links. People improve their lie by kicking balls back onto the fairway and muttering “winter rules”. Just this morning on the radio I heard the quote dropped, “The world needs ditch diggers too!”

This movie is based upon the exploits of brothers Bill Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray as they caddied at the Indian Hills golf club in Winnetka, Illinois. What they wrote is a class struggle in which the world is run by the W.A.S.P.s (Judge Smails, Dr. Beeper, The Bishop) and the rest of the ethnic groups are excluded. Rodney Dangerfield’s character Al Czervic does a great job of busting down the front door. Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe), a boy in a large Irish Catholic family, sneaks in the back door by working as a caddy.

As a mainstream movie, it was a comedy hit. Its longevity has resulted from the legions of golf lovers endlessly watching and quoting. Ted Knight provides serious lines delivered seriously for unintentional comedy. It showed that his character could have a lot more intelligence than newscaster Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore show. Incidentally Ted himself was of Slavic descent, which probably made for an in-joke during the filming of the movie. Judge Smails was trying to exclude Al Czervik from the club. Al was played by Rodney Dangerfield in his signature movie role. Al repeatedly skewers the Judge.

Czervik: [picks up golf hat from pro store rack] Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh? [turns to see Judge Smails wearing identical hat] Oh!, it looks good on you though... [*rolls eyes*]

Chevy Chase really was not all that funny, but he was not expected to really carry the humor load. He has scenes in which he tries to be funny, but they are only funny because the pump has been primed by the other characters. Brian Doyle-Murray is funny as the emperor of the caddy shack. Bill Murray is funny as the twisted greens keeper Carl Spackler. The caddies are funny because of the situations they are in, such as the pool hour, or the caddy tournament.

This movie belongs in every golfer’s DVD collection. Remember to stay away from Caddyshack II {BB}

Added: February 7th 2005
Reviewer: BB
29 Point Scale Score:    [25]

Related Link (IMDB): IMDB
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Language: english