The Caddy

The Caddy is a Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis comedy film. It's directed by Norman Taurog and also stars Donna Reed & Barbara Bates. Also featured in the story are some leading professional golfers of the time.

Middle tier Martin & Lewis movie that sticks rigidly to the formula that made them so popular. Jerry causes mayhem but always endears in doing so, while Dean croons and catches the eye of the ladies. Plot is told in flashback as the popular duo, now big musical hall stars, shows how they got together courtesy of golf. Cue some goofing around on golf courses and chaos unbound as Jerry upsets the upper class toffs of society. Cue carnage in a department store and chaos on the golf course.

Dean sings the Oscar nominated "That's Amore," as well as "It's A Whistle In," "Kinda Mornin," "One Big Love" & "What Wouldcha Do Without Me?" Reed and Bates are pretty and adorable, and both play off of the boys with ease. All of which builds to a fun double-take ending to seal the deal as The Caddy reaching its par on the course of Martin & Lewis movies. 7/10

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.

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.

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.