Everyone will have favorite silly scenes.
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There are few saving graces in this film, but like a lot of other people, I harbor a guilty pleasure in watching it, at least in bits and pieces, again and again. "Caddyshack" is one of those dumb comedies that has become a minor cult classic and shows up on one cable channel or another about six times a week. Whenever I surf into it, I have to stop for at least a moment and chuckle. Can it already be the film's twentieth anniversary?
Cowriter and director Harold Ramis ("National Lampoon's Vacation," "Groundhog Day") said that his initial intention was to make a comedy about a bunch of young caddies at a posh country club. But then he hired funnymen Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, and Ted Knight, and the whole show had to be tailored around their talents. The resultant film goes in every direction. It hasn't so much a plot as it has a string of routines or set pieces spotlighting each performer. Some of the gags work, some don't, but it doesn't matter. Everyone is having so much fun, cast and audience, that the whole thing is like a communal experience rather than a movie.
The action is set almost entirely at the snooty Bushwood Country Club, presided over by its most influential member, Judge Smails, played by Ted Knight. Knight basically reprises the character he played on the old "Mary Tyler Moore Show" (remember Ted Baxter, the newscaster?), this time with more money but the same pompous, arrogant, haughty, know-it-all attitude. He's the balloon waiting to be popped. Chase plays Ty Webb, a wealthy young loafer with a passion for golf. Chase plays him with his patented laid-back, nonchalant air. He's our hero, able to remain calm and flippant under the most trying circumstances. The judge asks him why, if he's so good, he never plays golf against other opponents or keeps score: "How do you measure yourself with other golfers?" Chase answers with perfect timing, "Height." It's that kind of insouciance that among the rich is referred to as "eccentric."
Now, if you're poor, you're Bill Murray's character, assistant groundskeeper Carl Spackler. Spackler is just plain goofy. He speaks with a demented twist to his lips that make him appear mentally challenged, except that he displays a sly streak as he wages a pitched battle with gophers throughout the film. For all intents and purposes he's in a movie to himself. Rodney Dangerfield makes his motion picture debut as a crass, loudmouthed, obnoxious multimillionaire condo developer named Al Czervik, obviously a role well suited to his stage persona. It is he who does the most puncturing of self-important, hot-air balloon heads as he crashes through the country-club set with flashy clothes, voluminous insults, and a gaudy red Rolls Royce. Finally, almost lost in the crowd is Michael O'Keefe as Danny Noonan, a caddy who is trying to win a club scholarship to college. One can see at a glance that the film started out as his story but quickly took another course.
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[release]4094[/release]