Heavy duty humor

Rating: 8/10 (29 May 2018)

Golf and those who play it becomes the subject of some heavy duty humor in
Caddyshack. Some of the funniest folks in the last half of the last century are
involved with Caddyshack.
With many little subplots going the main plot involves the rivalry between the
head of the club Ted Knight who is also a judge and Rodney Dangerfield who is
a filthy rich and brash visitor. Dangerfield is his usually cheerful and obnoxious character, but he presses Knight's buttons. Some of the funniest
moments of the film is Knight reacting to Dangerfield.
Chevy Chase is an interesting fellow himself, a rather iconoclastic character who doesn't even keep score as he explains his philosophy of life to young
Michael O'Keefe who is one of the caddies just trying to pick up some extra
dollars and suck up to the rich who are regulars at the club.
Knight reminds me of the character of the father of the prospective bride whom Auntie Mame was desperately trying to keep nephew Patrick from
marrying. Willard Waterman in Auntie Mame was not on his home ground
and Rosalind Russell capitalizes on that. You see Knight on his home turf (no pun intended) but it yields him no advantage as Dangerfield just shows him
up over and over.
We cannot forget Bill Murray who is an iconoclastic character in his own right.
He's one of the groundskeepers and has been assigned the task of ridding the
world of gopher who has taken residence at the country club and leaving inconvenient holes in the ground. It's a battle of wits and guess who comes
out on top?
Henry Wilcoxon plays a Catholic bishop who likes to golf. He isn't exactly Father O'Malley moved up in the ranks. Wilcoxon is best known for all the
Cecil B. DeMille films he did and his final scene has a DeMille like quality.
With the gopher character Caddyshack expertly blends animation with the live
players. Big kudos go out to the animators for the gopher.
Don't expect any sophistication, but Caddyshack will give you lots of belly laughs with many to spare