Amours, Délices... et Golf

Dean martin, jerry lewis, still together, kind of. Kind of like abbott and costello, harvey (lewis) can't seem to do anything right... his dad wanted him to play golf, and he keeps getting fired from his jobs. Co-stars donna reed, barbara bates, fred clark. When harvey can't take the pressure of golfing in front of a crowd, he ends up as caddy to joe (martin). That somehow leads to the comedy team being hatched. Lewis was almost 30 at this point, and i never understood why he spoke in that annoying baby voice. Did he dislike his own voice that much? It's a seldom shown martin and lewis film. It's okay. Not bad, not great. Martin's song amore was nominated for the oscar. Directed by norman taurog, who did a whole lot of elvis films. A bunch of spencer tracy films. And some other great stuff too.

"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.

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.

How can you go wrong with Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Donna Reed and Ben Hogan all in the same film?! The funniest of the Martin-Lewis pairings, with real-life players Sam Snead and Julius Boros adding to the goofy golf. Oscar-nominated song "That's Amoré" has been a classic for 45 years (it should have won the Academy Award; hear it again in "Moonstruck"). If you don't crack up when Jerry tells Bantam Ben "That's a wedge shot Mr. Hogan," then take up tennis.

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.