Scene Anatomy 101 07.16.08: Caddyshack

Posted by George H. Sirois on 07.16.2008

Everyone has that one scene that captures someone perfectly. This was his…




It's been about a week now since I heard the news that my good friend and former co-worker Lee Abramowitz had suddenly and very unexpectedly passed away. I'm still trying to come to grips with the situation since he was not only still very young, but kept himself in shape, was very active and had lived life with true vigor.

He was only at Hadassah for a little over two years, but he literally hit the ground running and had the whole building loving him within a week. He had touched us all in so many different ways, but for me, there were a few special qualities about him that I'll never forget. One was that, for a company where women are the majority, I had someone I could talk with about sports. He was an avid football and baseball lover, but in an interesting twist, he was a Cowboys fan, a Mets fan and devout Yankees hater. Being a Giants fan and a Yankees fan, I wasn't supposed to like him! But his infectious personality won me over long before I was aware of his allegiances.

Another great thing about him was that he provided a great sounding board for both my writing and the videos I started editing together last year. He was always available to give feedback and he made a point to print out each Scene Anatomy 101 column or UBS Evening Movie News report so he could read them on the way home from work. When he left, I made sure that I included him on my forwarding list to send around every Thursday of my columns, and when I was unable to do so for a couple weeks because actual work kept getting in the way, he sent me an e-mail and asked for his fix.

When I got over the initial shock of hearing about his sudden passing, I realized that it was only right that I dedicate this column and tomorrow's UBS report to him. And so I thought about what film and what scene perfectly captured what I loved about the guy. I did the same thing three years ago when I lost my cousin Matt (I covered a scene from the movie Diggstown), and one thing that I always believed is that everyone has that one scene that they could point to from any movie and say, "That sums me up the most."

Lee and I had very similar tastes in movies, and we were constantly throwing out random lines from classics such as Stripes, Animal House and especially from this week's film, the 1980 Harold Ramis classic…



If I were to sum up Caddyshack in one word, it would be: random. There's very little plot to the whole thing, just a loose thread involving Bushwood Country Club caddy Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe) wanting to go to college so he doesn't have to spend his life working in the lumber yard. Along the way, we are introduced to Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), an avid golfer who is only a member of Bushwood because his father helped develop it with Judge Smails (Ted Knight), who is constantly being taunted by an owner of a construction company named Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield), who wants to buy Bushwood. And of course, there's the greenskeeper Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), who is given the task of eliminating a pesky gopher that found its way to Bushwood through Czervik's construction that is taking place just outside the club.

The movie is more or less a series of instances that take place among the characters, and as time passes, they eventually find a driving force among them all when Ty and Al team up with Judge Smails and his partner Dr. Beeper (Dan Resin) in a competition for $20,000. (The number eventually goes up to $80,000.) Throw in a couple quick subplots involving Danny's girlfriend Maggie (Sarah Holcomb) thinking she's pregnant, Danny having a quickie with Judge Smails' gorgeous niece Lacy Underall (Cindy Morgan, who STILL looks great) and an infamous candy bar falling into the club's pool and you get the sensation that writers Harold Ramis, Brian-Doyle Murray and the late great Doug Kenney were just making the movie up as they went along.

But one scene in particular – probably the most random out of them all – happens during the second half of the film. Dark clouds are slowly forming in the sky around Bushwood. Carl is goofing off with a gardening hoe in his hands, holding it like he would a golf club beside a row of flowers. (Before shooting this scene, director Harold Ramis told Murray how he likes to talk to himself while jogging like he's running the last miles in the New York City Marathon. So Murray went with that mindset while he was approaching the flowers.)

CARL: What an incredible Cinderella story. This unknown comes out of nowhere to lead the pack at Augusta. He's on the final hole. He's about 455 yards away. He's going to hit about a two iron, I think.

Carl reaches back and pulverizes the flower like it were a golf ball.

CARL: Well, he got out of that. The crowd is standing on its feet here at Augusta. The normally reserved crowd...

As he is talking louder, two Bushwood members look up at the darkening sky and hold out their hands to feel some raindrops. Carl's voice drops down and he looks away from the members and continues his thought.

CARL (lower voice): ...is going wild.

The Bushwood members shake their heads and walk back inside the country club. Carl goes back to business, stepping up to the next flower as his voice gets louder.

CARL: For this young Cinderella boy who has come out of nowhere, he's got about 350 yards left. He's going to hit about a 500 on this one, don't you think?

Carl reaches back, as his voice gets softer like your typical golf commentator.

CARL: He's got a beautiful back swing.

He swings, destroying another flower.

CARL: That's... oh! He got out of that one! He's got to be pleased with that! The crowd is on its feet here! He's a Cinderella boy. Tears in his eyes, I guess, as he lines up this last shot. He's got about 189 yards left and he... looks like he's got about an 89. This crowd is going deadly silent. Cinderella story, out of nowhere. A former greenskeeper now about to become the Master's champion.

He reaches back and smashes the next flower to pieces. He looks up and watches the "ball" fly through the air. Then he raises his arm and drops the hoe.

CARL: It looks like a mira... It's in the hole! It's in the hole!

As he celebrates his Augusta victory, one of the members – Bishop Fred Pickering (Henry Wilcoxon) – wanders up to Carl, his golf bag around his shoulder.

BISHOP: Hey, young fella. I was hoping to squeeze in about nine holes before this rain starts.

Carl is surprised, not expecting anyone even on the course with the bad weather that's creeping in.

CARL: Certainly, Your Eminency.

The Bishop walks towards the course and motions towards his bag.

BISHOP: Take my bag, huh?

CARL: Certainly, Your Regulusness.

Carl grabs his hoe and tries to stuff it in the golf bag. The Bishop beckons him to move faster.

BISHOP: Hey, come on. Chop chop. Let's go.

The Bishop takes his first swing, and it's a big one. The ball is carried by the wind and goes so far that Pickering starts laughing in amazement at himself.

As he watches the ball fly, Elmer Bernstein's immortal theme to The Ten Commandments begins to play. (One thing that Lee and I always mentioned whenever we would talk about this scene. With all due respect to the late Mr. Wilcoxon, Charlton Heston should have been Bishop Pickering. It would have been all too perfect, and I'm not sure if Ramis ever tried to get him to play the part.)

Carl is just as stunned as he can't take his eye off the ball. He keeps looking up as he hands his jacket to the Bishop.

CARL: You better put this on.

BISHOP: Yeah.

Carl points out towards the green as he is still captivated, speaking without a drip of sarcasm.

CARL: That's a great shot, though. Great. I can't believe the way you hit that ball, sir. You really covered it.

The Bishop lines up for another shot as a group of golfers start to seek cover as the rain starts to come down, the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls.

Pickering putts the ball and it passes the hole, but then the wind catches it and blows it back into the hole. He lets out another hearty laugh, still ecstatic over how this game is going. It's as if the rain isn't even touching him.

Another Bushwood member walks up to Pickering, who points to him and begins to brag about his game.

BISHOP: Did you see that? Miracle, eh?

MEMBER: Nice shot, Bishop. You must have made a deal with the devil.

Pickering nods, a great big smile across his face.

BISHOP: I could break the club record, theoretically.

The member nods understandably.

MEMBER: You better come in until this blows over.

The member then walks away and Pickering bends down to take his ball from the hole. Carl squats down beside him.

BISHOP: So what do you think, fella?

Carl barely takes a moment to think about his response, and just decides, to hell with it. They're already out there and they're already soaked.

CARL: I'd keep playing. I don't think the heavy stuff is going to come down for quite a while.

The Bishop stands up and looks up at the rain. He literally looks born again; his golfing skills have been baptized in this storm.

BISHOP: You're right. Anyway, the Good Lord would never disrupt the best game of my life!

Another crackle of thunder provides Pickering with his answer, and he presses on. We see him making another shot, and as his ball settles right above the hole, a frog hops out from the hole and the ball drops into the cup.

BISHOP: I'm infallible, young fellow!

Now the storm has become a full fledged monsoon. Carl's hat flies off, never to be seen again until the next time he's wearing it. The Bishop grabs him by the arm and urges him to move on towards the ninth hole.

BISHOP: Come on! One more hole!

As the wind rips through the club and the rain is now going sideways, Bishop Pickering takes his last putt and the ball glides right past the hole. He must have been only one stroke away from setting a new club record because he swings his club up towards the sky in total agony and screams out one of the all-time greatest outbursts.

BISHOP: Ohhhhhhh, RATFARTS!

And as if that word was some kind of smite against God, a bolt of lightning comes down and connects with the golf club, sending electricity through Bishop Pickering's body. He glows as he falls unconscious to the ground. Carl, not knowing what else to do, simply drops the golf bag and runs away.

It's not too much time before we see that Pickering survived the lightning bolt. All it did was cause him to drink heavily and denounce God's existence. (Or was the urge to drink and the renouncing of his faith because of his missing out on Bushwood immortality? That could be it.)

Even though Lee wasn't a Lutheran, and he was definitely not a Bishop or a golfer (as far as I knew), he was the kind of guy that would keep playing whatever it was he was playing while everyone else was seeking cover from a monsoon. No matter what he did, he loved to keep doing it. And he was one of the best I've known at the sport of living life. Like he told my manager a while back, if he didn't go to the gym every day, he'd weigh about 500 pounds.

He didn't just live life; he attacked it, and somehow, he never let anything bring him down. He never showed up at work with an ice pack on his head from the night before or anything like that. And if there is anything that I could take from him, it was to not let the little things bring you down, to not only keep yourself smiling but make damn sure that others around you were smiling too, and embrace the randomness of a scene like this in a movie like this.

So give this a little bit of thought. Is there a scene in a movie out there that you can point to and say, "That sums me up" or "That sums my friend up?" If so, I'd like to hear about them, so feel free to post them here.


Godspeed, my friend. We love you and miss you. And thank you for all the laughs.

Until next week, Class Dismissed!


-- George H. Sirois