Caddyshack (1980)

[Edgy MD]

Class warfare plays out on the links of a private golf club --- or "gof," as they call it in Scotland.

ESPN ranks this as the number eight sports movie of all time. Robotic gopher created by John Dykstra.

[Benjamin Grimm]

HATED IT!

[Edgy MD]

Still, though, half a star? I reserve that for 8mm bootlegs of I Am Curious Yellow.

[Benjamin Grimm]

You didn't give me a zero option, so I had to give it a half.

HATED IT!

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Really? There are times when I'm not exactly in the mood, but... well... really?

It's a 4 on my scorecard, and that's only because of the gopher and the Maggie penalty strokes.

[Edgy MD]

See, Sarah Holcomb and the robot gopher are more of what I watch movies for.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I kinda liked Caddyshack as a movie about Danny, but really the whole Spackler subplot has nothing to do with the story except for the contrived gopher finish, and robbed from it, as good as Murray was at it. All the other oddballs play some kind of role in the arch of the story.

Still has a lotta laughs but not a great movie altogether.

[Willets Point]

Edgy DC wrote: Still, though, half a star? I reserve that for 8mm bootlegs of I Am Curious Yellow.

Oh come on, I Am Curious Yellow gets a star just for the Martin Luther King, Jr. cameo.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The robot gopher was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. It was a long time ago, so I don't remember the details, but I do recall sitting in the theater when that gopher started dancing at the end of the movie and the crowd roared with laughter, and I was wondering what planet I was on.

[Edgy MD]

I kinda liked Caddyshack as a movie about Danny, but really the whole Spackler subplot has nothing to do with the story except for the contrived gopher finish, and robbed from it, as good as Murray was at it. All the other oddballs play some kind of role in the arch of the story. Still has a lotta laughs but not a great movie altogether.

It is strange that he's the protagonist, yet not featured in the film's marketing at all. DVD extras revealed it was clearly a script about him and his rivalries and interactions with the other caddies, but as the talent came on board, they started writing more action in the clubhouse and less in the titular caddyshack.

Other things gleaned from the DVD extras:

• Jon Peters is as much a freaky over-the-top Hollywood jerkoff as Kevin Smith makes him out to be.
  
• This movie set the eighties standard for gratuitous boob shots.
  
• George Lucas lent them John Dykstra to create the gopher.
  
• Chevy Chase and Bill Murray had some bad blood from their SNL days and brawled on the set.

Not included:

• Where Kenny Loggins pulled that insane vocal arrangement out of.
  
• Why Harold Ramis is the happiest guy in Hollywood when he hangs out with Bill Murray who seems to be the saddest.

You get the idea that all those surreal juvenile punches sewn into it --- the caddies storming the pool, the mayhem at the yacht club --- are all Jon Peters. He's probably also responsible for the goofy symbolic nomenclature.

Sarah Holcomb (Maggie) is also the actress who played the teenager who passes out on Tom Hulce in Animal House. Cursory research tells me Caddyshack was her last film and she retired before 20 --- drugged up and schizophrenic.

[Vic Sage]

Murray's spontaneous riffs, and his ongoing battle and the Gopher, are what make the movie worth watching. and, of course, the gratuituous boobage. The rest is worthless.

and Ben, i LOVE the gopher dance... so i got THAT goin' for me, which is nice.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I'm with Ben on the Gopher business. It was stupid.

This should have been a movie about a poor kid weighing an invitation to privileged adult society against the cost to his soul.

[metirish]

It's very annoying .....glad to see that other people don't care for it because growing up it seemed everyone that ever talked abut it loved the damn thing.

[Edgy MD]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'm with Ben on the Gopher business. It was stupid. This should have been a movie about a poor kid weighing an invitation to privileged adult society against the cost to his soul.

Which it was, it's just that the story got hidden behind the set pieces. And the boobies.

[Willets Point]

Mildly entertaining crude-humor-fest, nothing more.

[Frayed Knot]

Mildly entertaining crude-humor-fest, [crossout]nothing more[/crossout] with a lot of great lines.

[Willets Point]

Frayed Knot wrote: Mildly entertaining crude-humor-fest, [crossout]nothing more[/crossout] with a lot of great lines.

And tits. Don't forget the tits.

[Frayed Knot]

I remember George Plimpton, fairly late in his life, writing a piece about 'Caddyshack'. Mostly it was about how for years he was constantly being told that he absolutely HAD to see this movie; about how much he, as a golfer, would enjoy all the wonderful one-liners, inside golf jokes, and country club satire.
So he finally did - maybe two decades after its release.
He thought it was trash.

Not quite sure that had I been friends with George P. I'd have been so quick to recommend it as his kind of flick.

[Edgy MD]

I think it's one of those things where you remember the virtues and forget the flaws, see it years later and say, oh, right...

Hopefullly, George Plimpton isn't in the room at the time.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I really do think that weed-- on both the production and consumption ends-- had a lot to do with the enjoyment I've wrung from this movie.

My rating's down to 3 1/2, but that's where it stays.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Maybe that was my problem: I wasn't drunk or high when I saw the movie.

[Vic Sage]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'm with Ben on the Gopher business. It was stupid. This should have been a movie about a poor kid weighing an invitation to privileged adult society against the cost to his soul.

yeah, it should have been alot of things, but it wasn't. The central story was (a) badly written, and ( badly acted, so all that was worthwhile in it was Bill Murray insanely ad-libbing entire monologues, and Chevy's womanizing zen golfer. Oh, and the gopher dance. And the boobies. which are nice.

[Frayed Knot]

Carl Spackler fulfills his dream and wins the Pebble Beach Pro-Am this weekend.
OK, it really helps when your paired pro - D. A. Points in this case - wins the overall competition, but the amateur part of the pairing can't screw it up and Murray, for all his clowning antics, is more than a decent golfer.


It was a Cinderella story really.

[Fman99]

Give Rodney credit too, this was his breakthrough role and he zings the one liners throughout.