Caddyshack

There are films which have become so all-encompassing in their popularity that it seems the culture itself has swallowed them whole. Caddyshack is one such film. At least once a week, it must air somewhere in America; it's a fair bet that through the magic of cable, you can probably catch it once a month or so. The good people at Warner Bros. recently re-released their DVD of the film in a 20th anniversary edition which features a half-hour documentary on the film as well as the movie's trailer. They've also re-released new VHS prints of the film in the past year. So it's clear that not only is Caddyshack not underappreciated in the slightest, it might even be a bit overexposed, and has probably been that way since shortly after its release.

Yet we must ask ourselves the question: why? It's got Bill Murray, and he's a pretty popular funny guy, and so is Chevy Chase. Rodney Dangerfield has his proponents as well. There's turd humor, that's always good, and if you catch it on pay cable then you get some nice, extended breast nudity from a pretty righteous babe. Other than all of that, which is some pretty vital stuff, what makes Caddyshack so great?

Step back a second: is Caddyshack a great film? I'll say yes. I'll also say that it is probably the funniest comedy of the 1980's, and that I'd put it currently on a list of the ten or twenty funniest films ever made. Beyond all that, I'll say that for all the exposure Caddyshack recieves, it's still woefully underappreciated, understood more as a harmless TV diversion than as the simmering cauldron of comic brilliance that it is.

Here's what's amazes me about Caddyshack: it really is zen comedy. The plot is useless and meaningless. It's such a flimsy excuse to bring together characters that it tears under even the slightest critical pressure. (See? I just tore it now. Look what you made me do, damnit!) Who really cares about these caddies and their wacky misadventures? Who really gives a shit if Bobby gets his scholarship or not? These characters just float in their own separate spheres until they collide with one another, and when they collide, really funny things happen.

That's not odd for most film comedy; what is odd is that in spite of the lack of plot, you still care about the characters, because somehow the characters manage to exist outside of the worthless bullcrap that's happening around them. You care, but you have no good reason. It's all good. Zen, man.

And what characters they are. Since the plot is so threadbare, the characters are really the heart of Caddyshack. It's one of the most incredible mixes of comic styles ever achieved in a single film. Chase is pure SNL--cocky, clumsy and unpredictible. You never know where he'll take a line or gesture, and his performance maintains its edge even through repeated viewings. Like Chase, Dangerfield is essentially doing his proven schtick, only with the aid of some of the great one-liners in film history--"Did somebody step on a duck?" He's all nervous energy, always twitching, constantly reacting to the action around him.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, you have two great character actors pushing their performances into uncharted territories of wackiness. Bill Murray as Carl does masterful work. Watch the control he's constantly exerting over his own face, especially his lips. It may look simple, but that kind of command over one's body in a performance is unique. It's also worth noting that many of his greatest moments were largely improvised, and that helps him inhabit the character in a way that the other actors don't. His speech about caddying for the Dalai Lama is a cinema comedy classic for a reason--it's sinister and pathetic at the same time.

But in my humble opinion, the great comic hero of Caddyshack is a man whose work is often ignored in favor of heaping more praise on Dangerfield, Chase and Murray. I'm speaking, of course, about Ted Knight as Judge Smails. Knight has one of the most expressive faces you'll ever see, and he uses it to catapault Smails way over the top in just about every scene he plays. Smails could easily have been a boring figure, the traditional stuffed-shirt who is constantly getting in the way of our wacky, rebellious heroes. Instead, he consistently holds his own in scenes with three of the great giants of eighties film comedy. The looks of horror that he delivers whenever Dangerfield arrives on the scene simply fill the screen with their shock.

There's a central conflict simmering beneath the surface of those looks, too--the tension between the "old guard" of film comedy and the new young turks rising up to take their place. It's tension, and at the same time, cooperation. Dangerfield and Chase are performers of a similar stripe, their comedic personas defined by their reactions to the world. In their own ways, Knight and Murray's talents parallel one another, too--both are character actors in the classic sense of the word, who take the lines from a page and add unspeakable dimensions through their work. There's an electricity on the screen whenever they appear together that's as much a product of their vast differences as performers as it's from the flow of their energies together.

That's what you have in Caddyshack ultimately--beyond the threadbare plot lie four of the great comic performances of all time, from four of the screen's great comedians. That's what you're watching when you stumble upon the movie on some lonely Saturday night in your apartment. You can live with it as just another wacky eighties comedy, or you can appreciate these comic masterworks for what they are. You've got that going for you, which is nice.