Caddyshack: The 19th Hole

I didn't love Caddyshack before or after I watched this documentary, but I liked the movie more afterwards. I prefer making-of documentaries that have more recent interviews with the cast and crew, as this one did. I think there are better insights provided by people looking back at the making of the movie and their experiences and goals during production rather than interviews of people on the set during filming, where they are interviewed between takes, wearing their costumes from the movies and whatnot.

The stars and director of Caddyshack look back with tongue in cheek, particularly Chevy Chase, who thinks that less money should have been spent on the mechanical gopher and more on more of him in the movie. The actor who played the Italian golfer in the movie looks back with what appears to be genuine resentment that there was so little of him in the movie. Evidently, there was a lot more of him in the script than in the final film, because he claims that he and one or two other people were the stars of the film but were cut out in the editing room. Given his role in the movie, however, I find it hard to imagine how his character was the star of the movie. Then again, this is the same guy who claimed that the movie was originally supposed to be an epic drama, so maybe he thought he was performing for a different movie.

At any rate, this documentary gives some great looks back at what the director and stars experienced during the production of the movie, as well as lots of looks at outtakes and behind the scenes footage. One actor was unable to eat chocolate for years after the movie was made because of the Baby Ruth in the pool scene. Good thing she didn't do a shower murder scene, she might have ended up looking like a peasant from the time of King Arthur, whose skin was scarcely visible through the dirt (if, of course, Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee is to be believed). Whatever the case, I would think that the director's ability to get sponsorship from a candy company for later films suffered more than this woman's ability to eat chocolate, and probably led to him taking bit parts in better movies later in life, such as the doctor in As Good As It Gets which, incidentally, is what Caddyshack becomes after watching this making-of documentary. Not bad.

Just watched this short looking back behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of Caddyshack on the Blu-ray disc of the movie. Among the people interviewed: producer Jon Peters, writer/director Harold Ramis, and players Cindy Morgan, Scott Colomby, Ann Ryerson, Hamilton Mitchell, and Chevy Chase. Ms. Ryerson mentions the candy bar-in-the-pool scene and says she can no longer eat one because of that. Ms. Morgan mentions her reluctance to do nude scenes to Mr. Ramis who didn't want to force her to do it. Mr. Peters ended up making her do it. They all mention the genius of Bill Murray's improvisations as Carl Spackler as well as John Dykstra's handling of the animatronic gopher. They also mention the ways the late Ted Knight and the late Rodney Dangerfield worked and their friction that seemed to help the movie. There were a few more interesting anecdotes that were told but I'll just say that Caddyshack: The 19th Hole was a nice look back at this now-classic comedy.