Harold Ramis put ‘Caddyshack’ in the bag
By Chris Erskine
There are only a few true masterpieces that debuted in my lifetime: the ’64 Mustang; Sandra Bullock‘s perfect chin; and “Caddyshack,” whose director, Harold Ramis, passed the other day at age 69, too damn soon, as if only on life’s 14th hole.
And yet 1,000 laughs over par.
From the snickering hiss of the fairway sprinklers to Rodney Dangerfield’s bug-eyed dancing, “Caddyshack” mixed all that was right about sports and movies into one great comedy overture. Though panned by critics at the time, the 1980 movie remains a classic by any measure, and the funniest sports movie of all time, hands down.
“I like to say we were struck by comedy lightning,” says Cindy Morgan, who played Lacey Underall, the leggy blond who roamed the course like she owned it.
“It was kamikaze filmmaking at its best,” she says from her home, 30 miles from the course where the movie was filmed.
She remembers tanker trucks pumping gasoline into the fairways without knowledge of the course owners, and the three-story fireballs that followed.
“Then they painted it green and blew it up again the next day,” she says.
Most of all, she remembers Ramis’ gentle genius, and the collaborative atmosphere he created.
“I walk out one day and there’s Billy swinging at the mums,” she says of one of the film’s most memorable scenes. “It was like making home movies of my family behaving badly.”