Der Tolpatsch

"The Caddy" is one of more than a dozen comedy films that Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made together. Their pairing made them both famous in films. This has the usual mayhem that Jerry's Harvey Miller causes or gets into. In one scene in the department store in which he works, he trips, slides, rolls on a coaster table, and clumsily stumbles around and smashes numerous merchandise displays. This scenario includes toppling and breaking several shelves of chinaware and dishes (no doubt, this was not expensive stuff for props). This could very well have established some sort of record for breakage in a comedy film.

Dean sings a few songs, including the debut of a song that would be a major hit and become his signature song for years, "That's Amore." Harry Warren wrote the music and Jack Brooks wrote the lyrics for the song specifically for this film. The song was nominated for a 1953 academy award. Although it didn't win, it was a smash hit with audiences and rose to No. 2 on the Billboard charts that year.

As the title alludes, the film centers a lot around the sport of golf. Jerry gets in some of the best humor there. With legendary golfers Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, there's also some very good golf shots.

This isn't the best of their pairings, but it will entertain folks who like this sort of comedy. I don't recall thinking Jerry was that funny when I watched his films as a kid and later on TV. His later solo movies, when he wasn't such a loud, complaining goofball, had more spontaneous humor, I thought.

Anyway, fans of the two will enjoy this film, and maybe some in the younger audiences will still find it quite funny. Golfers will enjoy seeing the famous pros on the course with the Dean and Jerry.

Joe Anthony (Dean Martin) and Harvey Miller, Jr (Jerry Lewis) are a star humor team. A friend recounts their story to a reporter. Harvey's father is a champion golfer. Harvey could be a great golfer but he can't perform in front of a crowd. When both Harvey and girlfriend Lisa (Barbara Bates) get fired for leaving work to see a golf tournament, Lisa gets him to work as a golf instructor. Lisa's brother Joe becomes his first client. Joe is a natural and starts playing in tournaments with Harvey as his caddy. He falls for socialite Kathy Taylor (Donna Reed).

This is generally fun. It is sad to hear that Martin and Lewis had already started splitting during this film. It doesn't really show on the screen although they aren't always together. Lewis is hamming it up while Martin is suaving it up. It's not the funniest but the guys are working hard. The misunderstanding is stupid but those are often the case in this type of movie. This is a fair Martin and Lewis film.

I have now re-watched all of the Martin & Lewis films and one thing I have noticed is how often Dean had to play characters who were complete louses. I can honestly see how this helped to break up the team as who would want to constantly play jerks in order to make their partner look more sympathetic?! This one finds Dean to be a bit of a jerk--though fortunately it's not nearly as bad in this one as in some of their other films and as a result it works a bit better.

Jerry plays Harvey, the son of a pro golfer who is ALSO a heck of a player. However, Harvey cannot go pro because he chokes up horribly when folks watch him play. But when he meets his fiancée's brother, Joe (Dean), Harvey sees that Joe could be a pro himself--and with his help, Joe enters his first tournament. But there is a problem...Joe wins the tourney and his ego becomes a bit inflated. He soon is taking his new friend for granted. Can Joe pull it together or are the two destined to go their separate ways? What do you think?!?!

One of the best things about this film is the music. Often I find the musical interludes distracting...but here Dean sings one of his greatest hits. "That's Amore" is the PERFECT tune for Dean's talents and you cannot help but love the song. Additionally, the humor is decent and Joe's not nearly so rotten as he could have been! Pleasant viewing.

I love Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, and this film had to be one of the funniest, aside from Sailor Beware. Martin and Lewis have a great chemistry that is so much fun to watch. I haven't seen all their movies yet, but after seeing The Caddy, I'll have to see them all! You have to see this movie.

When Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis split up in 1956, the consensus was that Jerry's comic talents would sustain his career, but that Dino would have a rough going. Well the consensus only had that half right. Most critics did focus on Jerry's talents, Dean was the straight man who sang a nice song occasionally.

But of all their joint films, The Caddy is best remembered for Dean's singing of That's Amore. The Harry Warren-Jack Brooks song sold a lot of records for Dean, putting him on something of an equal footing with his partner. It was nominated for an Oscar that year and until ten years or so later when Dino revived a song called Everybody Loves Somebody and made it his theme, That's Amore became the song most identified with the man from Steubenville, Ohio.

Of course Jerry has his moments in The Caddy, clowning with the various golfers who made cameo appearances here, doing a comic obligato after Dean sings That's Amore and a number called The Gay Continental. But That's Amore made this of all their films, Dean's triumph.

In fact Dino had another great reason to enjoy this film. Though not as publicized in fact he was as passionate about the game of golf as that other noted singer on the Paramount payroll, Bing Crosby. If he wasn't involved in any of the scenes on a given day, you would find Martin on the links invariably.

The plot such as it is involves Jerry Lewis as the son of a noted golf pro who also has an extreme case of stage fright. Jerry is engaged to Barbara Bates who is Dean's sister. Both come from an Italian fishing family. Father Joseph Calleia is a commercial fisherman and mother Argentina Brunetti runs a restaurant, specializing in seafood and pasta.

Jerry agrees to coach Dean and be his caddy. A lot of money can be made from professional golf although Calleia doesn't believe it. If this story sounds familiar that was the attitude of the patriarch of another San Francisco Italian fishing family named DiMaggio when three of their sons opted for careers in baseball. I guess Joe and his brothers Vince and Dom must have been flattered because they didn't sue Paramount.

Donna Reed plays the socialite sponsor of golf tournaments who falls big time for Dean. And Jerry gets to have another straight man in this film in the person of Clinton Sundberg, Reed's snooty butler. In fact Jerry gets even another substitute straight man in Fred Clark who is his and Bates's boss at the job they have at a department store. Although to be fair, Lewis rehashed some material here the Marx Brothers originally used in The Big Store.

The Caddy is one of the Martin-Lewis teams best and funniest comedies and if that don't get you, That's Amore will.