Amours, Délices... et Golf

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.

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.

Before I review The Caddy proper, let me just say that as a big fan of It's a Wonderful Life, I like to mention whenever players of that movie are in others I review. First, there's leading lady Donna Reed who of course was Mary Hatch there. Next, there's Argentina Brunetti-Mrs. Martini there-who's Dean Martin's mother here. Then, there's Bill Edmonds-Mr. Martini there-who's another of the Italian relatives (though I have to admit I didn't recognize him here). Finally, though I also didn't recognize her here, there's Mary Treen who even IMDb couldn't identify by role. Okay, with that out of the way, I'll just say that with Dean & Jerry playing entertainers who were once golfer and caddy, respectively, there's some hilarious scenes of Lewis wrecking havoc at a department store, of impersonating an Important Rich Man, and of disrupting some famous golfers' games. And Martin has an iconic moment when he sings a song that would be permanently identified with him: "That's Amore". And not just him but Jerry and the whole family sings along to one of the most entertaining numbers on film ever. What I didn't like was the way they have Dean treating Jerry like dirt in the middle of the movie and how dramatic that becomes at the expense of the mostly funny business that came before that. But it's worth it just to see how the whole thing ends especially when a couple of surprises happen there. Oh, and it was also hilarious whenever Jerry's boss Fred Clark-best known to me for his part in "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show"-is on screen. And the leading lady Jerry has here is played by the stunning Barbara Bates. So appealing is she here that I was stunned when I read of how tragic her life turned out. So on that note, The Caddy, despite its unevenness, gets a recommendation from me.

"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.