mikegerber.com

…and here’s a nice appreciation by blogger Edward Copeland. Copeland says he’s always shocked at how loose the film feels—how the dramatic elements (Danny and Maggie) seem to be at odds with the comedy; and of course they are. The movie is, to use my wife’s phrase, “a hot mess,” but it’s fantastically watchable. It’s genial—that’s the Kenney magic, at its very last gasp. (Less than a month after Caddyshack was released, Kenney would be dead, probably by his own hand.)

That Caddyshack is as good as it is, is slightly miraculous, given how it was made. Ramis had never directed a film before, Kenney was fighting with the studio, and massive amounts of cocaine and other drugs were being consumed. Then add to this the pressure Kenney and Ramis felt following up Animal House, at that point, the biggest-grossing comedy of all time. But of course it’s not a miracle; it’s an expression of just how much raw comic energy there was in the Second City/NatLamp/SNL axis at that precise moment, and how well-suited the zeitgeist was for comedy then.

There was a comedy Citizen Kane to be made in the post-Animal House era, something that yoked the incredible charisma of that generation of performers (Belushi, Murray, Chase) to the untapped and important topic of how the world opened up between 1960-80, with support from older pros like Dangerfield and Knight. That’s where you see just how much magic was possible; have those two warhorses ever been so funny before or since? That’s where Animal House was pointing, but between the drugs and the deaths and the nature of Hollywood, that great comedy was never made. It was like the Sixties without Woodstock. But what we’re left with is still pretty good—Caddyshack, Blues Brothers, Vacation—and Copeland’s post does a good job of reminding us why.

Incoming search terms:

• caddyshack
• caddy shack