Today turned out to be a double feature. I was flipping through channels and stopped at Turner Classic Movies just as Robert Osbourne and guest programmer Rich Eisen were introducing the film Caddyshack. I have not seen Caddyshack in at least 20 years but I know the film by heart. I saw it in the theatres in 1980 and I owned it on home video. It was one of the films my friends would always want to watch when they came over. There was one summer when we must have watched it twenty times.
By now most people know how the three main stars, Chase, Dangerfield and Murray, improvised their way through much of the film. It was director Harold Ramis' first film and it was a challenge for him to reign in his stars. The movie is often quoted and it's the lines by these three, that people remember. Overlooked in all this is the comic talent of Ted Knight. Maybe because people got used to seeing him playing a buffoon on the Mary Tyler Moore Show that they didn't realize just how funny he is. For most of the movie he is the quasi-bad guy and straight man to the antics of Dangerfield and Chase, but his comic timing make him the perfect foil for these two to play off.
The film seemed more disjointed this time. It is broken into comedic segments. The pool segment, the yacht segment, the caddy tournament, etc. and it's only at the end when everything sort of comes together. Both female leads disappear from the movie about two thirds through and the gopher steals every scene its in.
At The Movie House rating *** stars (add a star if you quote the Cinderella story when playing golf.)
No comments:
Post a Comment