** "Caddyshack" at first looks like a lot of 1970s films. There's a disorderly middle-class home, a hero who crosses the tracks to reach the rich part of town. But, the plot is essentially thin about a promising caddy vying for a scholarship, resistant to authority, nervous his girlfriend may be pregnant. You might even forget the movie has a plot.
** The scholarship plot was inspired by Ed Murray, the oldest Murray brother who won the prestigious Evans Scholarship given to exceptional caddies. It gave him a full ride to Northwestern University. (The Evans Scholarships are still awarded, now over 90 years old and overseen by the Western Golf Association of Glenview.)
** Besides Bill Murray's performance, you probably remember the gopher wreaking havoc across the course and Murray's efforts to get the varmint. What might have prompted that plot was that in the late 1960s, a muskrat took up residence near the 16th hole of the Indian Hill Golf Course. One night, a frustrated groundskeeper, a military vet, waited until the animal revealed itself, then flipped on the headlights of his ATV and fired a shotgun blast. (He missed.) Of course, there was always that darned groundhog that kept Murray in a loop in that other movie.
**Actor Michael O'Keefe, who played Danny, the aspiring scholarship candidate was later an Oscar nominee for the "The Great Santini" and married to singer Bonnie Raitt for eight years as well as on the TV show "Roseanne" for 35 episodes as Fred.
--CootCaddy
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