CADDYSHACK (1980)

Unless you’re an avid fan, golf isn’t the most interesting sport. There seems to be as much standing around or travelling to new destinations as time spent actually competing. But even when important shots are made, I can’t say I’ve ever felt that rush of adrenaline during them, or the sense that the world has collapsed in on itself, resting on an impossibly small and delicate axis as it hinges on a few seconds of calm before that all-important shot. It isn’t like listening to the dying chants and ambience of a stadium full of supporters as a hush descends over the crowd before a pivotal play, or the final seconds of a combat sports event where the thrill, agony, and everything in between those two realms rests in the balance.

That’s probably why Harold Ramis’s Caddyshack never tries to make you care too much about its final game, where a relentlessly juvenile comedy offers a mild note of tension to the climax of its plot. Instead, it lingers aimlessly and shuffles about, not unlike the experience of watching a golf game in action, or playing it yourself with some acquaintances (though my bias against the sport is showing here). That’s not entirely surprising; it seems damn near impossible to craft a narrative arc with a narrow focus on such a sport. What’s more shocking is that Caddyshack manages to inject frequent moments of whimsy throughout these proceedings, sometimes to good—though rarely great—effect. This was Ramis’s directorial debut, and it shows, with a scattershot approach to storytelling that zigzags between its principal cast with broad, sweeping, often lopsided brushstrokes. And yet, it all comes together rather nicely in the end, as if, in the process of making the film, Ramis slowly discovered what it was actually about.

The whole movie threatens to lose itself in a tangent that it’s convinced is slightly funnier than it really is, to the point where it’s easy to see why some viewers find its plot baffling. Caddyshack is never incoherent, but it often lacks a tonal centre, especially when it relies so heavily on the strength of its performers. Technically, the protagonist is Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe), a high school student working as a caddy at a country club and struggling to reconcile his big dreams with his menial job and lack of prospects. He’s smitten with co-worker Maggie O’Hooligan (Sarah Holcomb) and Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan), the niece of Elihu Smails (Ted Knight), a founder of this prestigious club and the director of the caddy scholarship programme. Danny’s an everyman hero who must learn the hard way that skyrocketing to success is a destiny reserved for the pictures rather than real life.

But since this movie never tries to capture anything triumphant about the sport it depicts, Danny is an uneventful hero, a typical youngster whose gumption makes him admirable, but not necessarily interesting. He’s a necessary evil to stop the film from swinging way off course and forgetting what it’s trying to be, but he’s also remarkably less funny than the rest of the film’s other key players. You can forget just about everyone in Caddyshack, since only four actors are truly essential to making this comedy work: Knight, Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, and Chevy Chase. The rest are window dressing, excuses for the movie to exist. The most noticeable quality of them all is Holcomb’s atrocious Irish accent; when Maggie speaks, she sounds like she’s never stepped foot on Earth, let alone Ireland. Perhaps she was specifically told to come across like a leprechaun, but it doesn’t lend itself well to eliciting laughter.

When the movie flits between its four actors of interest, the film is mostly successful, with the caveat that Caddyshackfeels like it’s continually morphing into slightly different versions of itself when each of these characters temporarily takes control of the narrative. Their unique comedic contributions don’t just inform the jokes in these scenes, but the tone underpinning what unfolds on screen. Chase is portraying the cool, slick playboy, an enjoyable role that is only slightly hampered by the streak of silliness that gradually infects his character, Ty Webb.

Rodney Dangerfield is Rodney Dangerfield; there’s no character in sight, even if he goes by Al Czervik in this film, a man of new money who’s vulgar and insulting to everyone he encounters. But you love him for his scathing remarks, with lightning-fast insults directed at everyone in sight. When Dangerfield is on screen, he takes the reins with a firm hand and never lets go, yanking audience focus onto him and his rapid-fire quips. It’s a bold move to transport one’s comedic stylings into a feature-length film where storylines and character arcs reign supreme, but it never gets old listening to Czervik tear into the old money clientele at this hoity-toity country club. Instead of using himself as the typical butt of the joke as he would in his stand-up routines, Dangerfield casts his mean, discerning eye over everyone in his vicinity, an enjoyable twist on his usual routine that translates very well to a film format.

Bill Murray is entirely in his own lane in Caddyshack, often at a distance from the rest of the characters in just about every possible way. He’s rarely near anyone, for starters, but he’s also about as psychologically disconnected from other people or the human condition as one can be. As Carl Spackler, a madcap, slapstick greenskeeper who is utterly hellbent on killing a very persistent gopher who’s been terrorising the country club’s grounds, Murray is just as committed as his character is, sporting a bizarre look for much of the film, where his lips are contorted to rest on one side of his face. Carl is lost within the maze of his own mind, like a war vet feverishly attempting to hunt enemy forces long after all of these bloody battles have ended, retreating further and further into the recesses of his neurotic, paranoid, hyper-vigilant ways, too locked into his solitary warpath to consider how ridiculous he is.

Except in this case, the nemesis in question is a gopher, a last-minute addition to the plot that was a necessity for giving Caddyshack some semblance of structure. The more one learns of the production of the movie, the more of a miracle it becomes that something resembling a story could have been cobbled together from its origins. Once envisioned as a mostly serious tale of two recent high school graduates (Danny and Tony D’Annunzio, portrayed by Scott Colomby in a minor part in the finished movie) attempting to figure out what they want to do with their lives, it gradually became a comedy, with Dangerfield and Murray gaining significantly expanded parts than when they signed on to the film, owing to their improvisational skills. The pair truly shine in moments where they can be completely uninhibited by the progression of the plot, with it soon becoming obvious, even without this behind-the-scenes knowledge in mind, that much of their dialogue was ad-libbed.

But the saving grace of Caddyshack isn’t the meddling producers, or Ramis, Dangerfield, and Murray, talented as they are. No, it’s Ted Knight who redeems this incredibly weightless movie, which is about golf only just as often as it isn’t, and would suffer immensely if not for one of the most delightful villains in the history of comedic cinema. Chase is fun to watch, but he’s playing it too cool to elicit much laughter. Dangerfield sticks to his strengths, but his jokes feel like snippets of a stand-up routine rather than authentic character interactions. Murray’s attempt at slapstick is masterful, but he’s so far removed from the rest of these characters that he might as well be in a separate film. But it’s Knight’s role as the overarching villain of Caddyshack that gives the movie shape, as well as providing constant hilarity that doesn’t rely on a particular style of comedy. Knight isn’t performing a style of comedy, he’s enlivening the believable structure of a cut-throat, pompous, short-tempered, vicious antagonist.

My favourite part of Caddyshack is that it’s as much a joy to watch Elihu gloat as it is to see him fail to contain his unbridled anger. Whether he’s overly chummy or absurdly vengeful, Elihu is a pathetic weasel emboldened by a larger-than-life performance from Knight. One of the greatest tests of a movie’s staying power is whether a rewatch provides a richer, fuller viewing experience, where viewers can still be amazed even when every plot beat is already etched in their mind. With Knight at the helm, that is possible with Caddyshack. For every weightless, stake-less, barely amusing scene, there’s constant hilarity whenever Elihu is present, with a gleefully theatrical performance that binds this film together better than anything its producers or director could have devised.

USA | 1980 | 98 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Harold Ramis.
writers: Brian Doyle-Murray, Harold Ramis & Douglas Kenney.
starring: Michael O’Keefe, Ted Knight, Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, Sarah Holcomb, Cindy Morgan & Scott Colomby.