Hole-y Mole-y

 

"Golf is a good walk, spoiled." - Mark Twain

"It took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on a golf course." -Babe Ruth

"Golf is a game in which you yell 'fore', hit six, and write down five." -Paul Harvey

"I went to play golf and tried to shoot my age, but shot my weight instead." -Bob Hope

The game of golf has been the subject of only a handful of movies. Many of them have been pretty serious. Some, based on true stories of legendary golfers are worth checking out: Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius which relates the story of the only golfer to win four major tournaments of his era in one year, Tommy's Honour which follows a 19th century father-son golf team and their impact on the game, and Seve: The Movie which is about a legend of the game, Severiano Ballesteros.  One additional great movie, which segues somewhat to today's movie, is The Greatest Game Ever Played, which chronicles the story of a caddy who won the U.S. Open in 1913.

But golf has also been the subject of several comedic turns. Happy Gilmore featured Adam Sandler as a rambunctious hockey player who, having been banned from his preferred sport, takes up the game of golf and creates a contentious rivalry with his fellow golfers. Pat and Mike, a Spencer Tracy / Katherine Hepburn romantic comedy which featured Hepburn as a female athlete trying to make it in the sports world.  Several lowbrow entries like Golfballs, Hole in One, and National Lampoon's Teed Off enter the fray as films that centered on the game.

And then, of course, there's Tin Cup (which I have to include here by contract, even though I dislike Kevin Costner movies). Tin Cup is just Bull Durham with golf as the focus instead of baseball. (See? I TOLD you I dislike Costner...)

One of my earliest solo movie jaunts (movies that I got to see without asking my parents permission) was the 1980 film Caddyshack. (And I could have SWORN I had already reviewed this movie on this blog. It turns out that I only briefly referenced it in a review of another movie, Porky's.) Caddyshack was enough of a hit that it spawned a sequel, albeit with only one actor from the first movie reprising his role, and very few of those behind the scenes getting involved either. 

The original has a cache of great cast members lending their talents to the film. The ostensible stars of the film were Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, but Rodney Dangerfield steals the movie, especially in his interactions with Ted Knight (who, in my opinion, is a very undeservedly underrated comedian). Several other players in the movie deserve some recognition, too. 

One in particular, for me, is Sarah Holcomb as "Maggie". The sad story of Holcomb is she only had 4 roles in films before she departed for private life (one as the underage hookup in National Lampoon's Animal House, and note, she was not underage as an actress, being 19 when production started.) Another is Scott Colomby as "Tony". Colomby was also in the aforementioned Porky's and its sequels.

Even though he was the primary character in the film, I have to admit I wasn't really impressed with Michael O'Keefe, but that may have more to do with his character than his acting.  He was, after all, a nominee for Best Supporting Actor just a year before for his role in The Great Santini. To tell the truth, I thought he was much better in Nate and Hayes (although I am apparently in a minority on that one, since it was savaged by the critics).

Rumor has it this entire movie was adlibbed. Actually, the only part that is rumored to be adlibbed is the scene between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray in the scene that takes place in Carl's house.  Which is believable, since the entire confrontation between Carl and Ty was a late add-on scene filmed after most of the movie had been shot.  This was because Harold Ramis, the director, realized he had a whole movie filmed and there was no scene with the interaction of the two stars of the movie.

Of course, sources say that nearly ALL of Bill Murray's stuff was adlibbed.  From what I read, Ramis basically just gave Murray a few words about what the scene was about and let Murray wind himself up. Interestingly, the story goes that Carl was not even in the original script at all.  He was only added as a character when Murray came on board.

But even Rodney Dangerfield's scenes come off as adlibbed.  Sure the writers were old hands at comedy, and his part easily COULD have been scripted, but like Robin Williams, I think Dangerfield was probably a better comedian when he didn't have to stick to a generic script.

Caddyshack (1980):

The story opens with our "hero" of the movie (the only one that didn't get the credit it deserves for his contribution to the comedic aspects of the film), the Gopher. (Note: Despite the title of this piece, which is just an attempt at humor, gophers and moles are not the same thing, even though they are similar in many ways.) The Gopher is causing a havoc, as per it's nature, on the golf course of Bushwood Country Club.

The first scene shows us Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe), a young high school student who has no real ambition to continue on his perceived current path, which seems to be that he is destined to be just another employee at the local lumberyard.  He wants to go to college, but that costs money, something his current summer job as a caddy at the Bushwood golf course seems unlikely to provide.

He has one option open to him: He could apply for the scholarship that Bushwood awards each year to one it's caddies.  But that requires sucking up to the leader/founder of the country club, Judge Smails (Ted Knight).

Smails is an obnoxious rude jerk who looks down on virtually everyone that is under his social status, and is very obsequious to people he looks up to, which is not very many... He rules the country club with something like the self-important superiority that is often played in film by upper class people. (Apparently in Hollywood it's always easy to make the upper class the butt of jokes.  Hence the typical sneering way they treat members of the opposing political party. Even though it doesn't get in to politics, per se, you just KNOW Smails probably votes Republican).

There are a lot of subplots going on in this film.  One is the primary goal of Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), the barely coherent groundskeeper at the club, who has a job to eliminate the infiltration of a pest, the aforementioned Gopher.  Although he does have some trouble keeping his mind focused on the job at hand.  Hence, sometimes he is coming up with creative ways to eliminate his enemy and other times he is spying on some of the elderly female golfers. 

In addition there is Ty Webb (Chevy Chase).  Ty is a guy with no real goal in life except to play golf.  Apparently he is able to do that mostly because his father was co-founder along withe Smails of Bushwood. Most of the scenes Ty is in in the film involves him trying to play a round of golf, and he is at least good at that job.

Enter into this somewhat sedate world Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield), a brash and very uncivilized "commoner" (to use a word that Smails would probably call him).  He is "not Bushwood material", says Smails, revealing the snooty upper class prejudice that is part and parcel of his character.

Al gets on Smails bad side from the very start, ridiculing him and making gauche remarks, including trying to bet Smails on his performance on the course, and playing, god help us, rock music from his fancy golf club bag.

Another subplot in the film is the appearance of Lacy Underall (Cindy Morgan), the niece of Smails who has been sent for the summer.  Lacy is an uninhibited sort and seemingly something of a nymphomaniac.  She manages to not only get in the sack with Ty, but also with Danny.  And the coupling with Danny becomes something of a thorn, since Danny is in the process of sucking up to Smails for that scholarship...

Danny has an in on that scholarship if he can just win the caddy golf tournament.  And he is not a bad golfer.  He does win.  Which makes him a prime candidate later in the film when Smails and Al are battling in a separate golf contest.

That separate contest is what makes up the last 20 minutes of the movie.  See, Smails and Al have been at each other's throats and Al suggests playing a round of golf with $$ as the incentive.  Smails gets one of his upper class buddies as a partner and Al ropes Ty into being his partner, which Smails initially tries to stop.  

Smails: "Listen, Ty. Your father and I prepped together, went to war together, played golf together. We bult this club. Let's face it, some people do not belong.... What'dya say, Ty...?"

Ty (laughing): "You know, Judge... my dad never liked you... Let's make it 40,000."

Amid a very contentious rivalry, Al figures out that he really *sucks* at golf.  But he manages to wangle a replacement golfer to play the rest of his turn through the course... Guess who that is... Yep. Danny.

"I guess you didn't really want that scholarship" says the Judge, a last minute blatant bribery attempt to try to get Danny to decline, but we cheer when Danny smirks at him and says "I guess I didn't."

Don't miss out on the end of this movie.  Those of us from the wrong side of the tracks love a good "making the snobs eat crow" kind of movie, where the underdogs get the upper hand (probably for the only time in their lives). 

This works best, I think, in a serious format.  Hoosiers is still one of the greatest underdog movies of all time. But in the comedy realm we almost always root for the underdog to win, and even if they end up losing we still love them over those smarmy "better than you" guys. (Unless you're one of those people who were actually cheering for the Yankees against the Bears in The Bad News Bears...)

If you liked this movie and want to see some more in the comedy realm,  check out The Longest Yard (the Burt Reynolds original, not Adam Sandler's lame remake), or Major League. Both have some great comedic scenes around the struggle of the less-than-perfects trying to show up those who are holier-than-thou upper crusts, (so to speak).

Well, time to fire up the old Plymouth.  And here's hoping I can drive it a lot further than I can drive a golf ball, or it's going to be a loooooong trip...

Quiggy