Publisher's Weekly Review
Entertainment Weekly film critic Nashawaty (Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses) tackles the rocky production and eventual success of the raucous 1980 golf comedy Caddyshack. The story of Caddyshack, Nashawaty shows, was very much that of its producer/cowriter Douglas Kenney, who died in an accident at age 35 soon after the film's release. A one-time Harvard Lampoon writer who subsequently helped found the spin-off National Lampoon, Kenney crossed paths with members of Chicago's Second City improv troupe and of the fledgling Saturday Night Live in the mid-'70s, resulting in the blockbuster film Animal House. As a follow-up, Caddyshack was expected to be a surefire hit, but competing egos, the inexperience of first-time director Harold Ramis, and ample drug use plagued the filming from the beginning. In Nashawaty's hilarious depiction, the production is shown to have been utter chaos, albeit with some creative genius tossed in-notably from star Bill Murray, who turned his throwaway groundskeeper role into Caddyshack's signature character. Moreover, the film's fans may be surprised to learn that upon its completion, both Kenney and the film's distributor, Warner Brothers, were convinced that it would be a flop. Nashawaty's book provides both an entertaining showbiz chronicle and, by the conclusion, an unexpectedly moving tribute to Kenney's short life and lasting comic legacy. Agent: Farley Chase, Chase Literary Agency. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
An everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about look at a cult movie whose reputation has grown in the four decades since its initial release.Entertainment Weekly film critic Nashawaty (Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses: Roger Corman: King of the B Movie, 2013) ventures that Caddyshack (1980) first took shape as a kind of lesser entry in a flurry of films born of the nexus of Saturday Night Live, the National Lampoon, and massive piles of cocaine: The Blues Brothers, Meatballs, Animal House, etc. It was also a more pointed exercise in class warfare at the outset than when it eventually emerged, many drafts later, to critical indifference. Putting on his Peter Biskind hat, Nashawaty connects this subversiveness to more serious films such as Mean Streets and Easy Rider while seeing it as a generational repudiation of comparatively treacly fare such as Clint Eastwood's orangutan comedies and the Smokey and the Bandit franchise. Though born of the free-wheeling, madcap cohort of fledgling director Harold Ramis (who called the movie his "$6 million scholarship to film school") and writers Brian Doyle-Murray and the doomed Doug Kenney, Caddyshack was thoroughly vetted by studio hacksfortunately, no one listened to them. Nashawaty steers readers through now-familiar scenes, such as Bill Murray's near-lethal wielding of a pitchfork and Chevy Chase's suave twitting of the uber-rich Ted Knight, brought to warp speed with the arrival of Rodney Dangerfield. What is constantly surprisingly, and most pleasantly so, is how these scenes could have been very different had other roads been takene.g., had the overburdened Bill Murray not found a spare few weeks to film and not been given free rein to improvise or had the casting director been able to land Mickey Rourke in the place of Michael O'Keefe for the central (though, in the final product, somewhat diminished) role of Danny Noonan.The book doesn't quite hit the insightful levels of those by Scott Eyman or David Thomson, just as the film isn't quite The Maltese Falcon. Still, Nashawaty provides an eye-opening pleasure for Caddyshack fans. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The critics didn't like it much. It didn't have much in the way of stars, with Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield as the headliners. It had a first-time director, a script that went through a multitude of iterations, and a costar, Bill Murray, who would go off-script whenever the mood struck. And it was about golf. It should have been a disaster, but Caddyshack (1980) became not just a cult fave but also a comedy classic. Film-critic Nashawaty's chronicle of the creation of the film goes back to the offices of the Harvard Lampoon in the mid-1960s, where Caddyshack's primary writer, Douglas Kenney, was the magazine's editor, and tracks the rise of satirical comedy and its practitioners, following the careers of the stars and creators of a movie that wasn't made for critics and mainstream audiences but, rather, for baby boomers, lovers of cutting-edge comedy and the new, edgy style of filmmaking. Nashawaty's prose is lively, and his exhaustive research is bolstered by interviews with many of the film's principle players, including the famously elusive Murray. A wonderful celebration of a passionately loved film.--Pitt, David Copyright 2018 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Nashawaty (Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses: Roger -Corman, King of the B Movie) provides a thorough look at the 1980 golfing comedy classic and the sex, drugs, and Kenny Loggins soundtrack that drove its making. Starting in the mid-1960s, Nashawaty traces Caddyshack's genealogy starting with writers from the Harvard Lampoon forming National Lampoon magazine, the shift in emphasis from writing to acting with National Lampoon's radio show and albums, the loss of talent to higher-profile gigs on Saturday Night Live, and finally, National Lampoon regaining importance with the wildly successful film Animal House. By the time Caddyshack is given the green light (roughly 100 pages in), the reader has a comprehensive knowledge of the 1970s New York comedy scene. Among the book's large cast of characters (Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Rodney Dangerfield), Doug Kenney stands out as the central, tragic figure-a boy genius who helped launch National Lampoon and who cowrote and produced Caddyshack but died -mysteriously shortly after its release. -VERDICT Casual readers will be better served by skipping the first half of this book and diving into the pot- and cocaine-fueled high jinks, cast and crew memories, and Hollywood drama collected here.-Terry Bosky, Madison, WI © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
