“Caddyshack” book goes in-depth on the cult classic

The first draft of the script for “Caddyshackâ€� was 200 pages long – which was nearly twice the norm for Hollywood screenplays at the time. And believe it or not, the character named Carl Spackler, the wacky and wacked out assistant greenskeeper so central to the movie in its final form, was nowhere to be found. Oh, and what about that gopher? Well, Spackler’s nemesis started out as a mere sock puppet, appearing in just one scene where the rodent pops up and steals Al Czervik’s golf ball. Those are just two of the many interesting nuggets that can be found in Chris Nashawaty’s new book, “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story.â€� Nashawaty’s book came out in April of this year. It was born of a six-page oral history he wrote about the cult classic for Sports Illustrated in 2010, three decades after its release. The book is meticulously researched – witness the 27 pages of notes at the end of the book – and pays homage to a film that tops nearly every list of funniest sports movies. But Nashawaty, who has been the film critic for Entertainment Tonight for the last 20 years, does more than just take his reader behind the scenes of an 11-week shoot filled with drama and debauchery in south Florida. Nashawaty’s book also sets the stage, so to speak, for the movie by examining the friendship between Harold Ramis, who directed the film, and his co-writers and co-conspirators, Doug Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. Their bond had been cemented about a decade earlier when National Lampoon was at its zenith and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” was turning traditional comedy on its collective ear. Kenney and Ramis were fresh off the success of “Animal House,â€� which they had written with Chris Miller, when they pitched a series of irreverent comedies to Orion Pictures and Jon Peters, who was married at the time to Barbara Streisand. The one that got the greenlight became “Caddyshack,” which had its genesis in Doyle-Murray’s memories of his teenage years spent caddying at Indian Hill Club on the north shore of Chicago. Once Nashawaty turns the focus to the movie, which comes about 100 pages into the narrative, the book gains momentum. And with comic geniuses like Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield on board, there were plenty of stories for him to tell. When Murray was hired to complete the “foursome,â€� as Nashawaty puts it, his character still didn’t exist, despite numerous rewrites to the script. Not to mention, with SNL about to resume production, he only had six days to devote to “Caddyshack,” but his brother, Doyle-Murray, promised him everything would work out. Much of Murray’s oft-imitated performance was ad-libbed – most notably the iconic “Cinderella Storyâ€� monologue. All the script said was: Carl, the Greenskeeper, is absently looping the heads off bedded tulips as he practices his golf swing with a grass whip. After changing the flowers to mums at Murray’s suggestion, the cameras rolled. And he did the entire sequence in one take. “I was good back in those days,â€� Murray tells Nashawaty. “I could do something when they turned the camera on. I was wired into what I was talking about. Improvising about golf was easy for me.â€� Anyone who has seen his antics at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am would certainly agree. And while he only had that one scene with the gopher puppet, Murray was frequently filmed trying to flush the critter out with a firehose he dragged around the course. It wasn’t until after filming was complete that the gopher took on a life of its own – eventually being created by a special effects company and at Peter’s suggestion assuming a bigger “roleâ€� to help to tie together the movie’s many disjointed but funny scenes. Murray loved doing battle with the gopher. “It was a time when people were making movies like the Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now,â€� Murray recalls in the book. “And that was my Vietnam movie. The ridiculously inappropriate firepower I used to kill a small rodent.â€� Speaking of firepower, there was plenty at Bushwood, aka Rolling Hills Golf Club, in Davie, Florida when the final scene was shot. Peters had taken the unknowing high-ups from the club to dinner and on an evening cruise as a diversion – but the proverbial jig was up when the explosions made the TV news and prompted a pilot to radio the nearby Ft. Lauderdale airport to report a crash. The damage to the Rolling Hills — which once hosted the likes of Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath — was minimal, though. Nashawaty’s book also delves into the complicated relationships between Chase and Murray, highlighting a fight between the two at 30 Rock during the SNL days, and between Knight and Dangerfield. Knight, a decorated war hero who won two Emmys for his work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” wasn’t exactly thrilled with being the straight man to Dangerfield’s ribald style of comedy. In the end, “Caddyshack,” wasn’t the comedic blockbuster Ramis, Doyle-Murray and Kenney had hoped, that distinction, instead, going to the movie “Airplane.” As the years have gone on, though, “Caddyshack” has more than found its niche and this book is a tribute to its popularity.

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