CADDYSHACK Tees Off at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville Tuesday April 19th

“Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac… It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!”

Nothing’s more fun than The Wildey’s Tuesday Night Film Series. Rodney Dangerfield and Chevy Chase in CADDYSHACK (1980) will be on the big screen when it plays at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville, IL (252 N Main St, Edwardsville, IL 62025) at 7:00pm Tuesday April 19th. Tickets are only $3  Tickets available starting at 3pm day of movie at Wildey Theatre ticket office.  Cash or check only. (cash, credit cards accepted for concessions)  Lobby opens at 6pm.

CADDYSHACK is a comedy classic that will never get old. The best part about it is it took some of America’s top comic actors when they were at the prime of their careers and built a comedy that’s more than just the sum of its parts. I mean, just having Bill Murray or Rodney Dangerfield in a movie, even a mediocre one, guarantees you will laugh, but this film features these two, along with Chevy Chase and Ted Knight, in what is arguably each man’s funniest effort.

As with most comedies, the plot is pretty much incidental to the film itself. In this case, CADDYSHACK is centered on a young caddy who can’t afford to go to college, so he is forced to suck up to the head of the country club (Ted Knight) in an effort to get his blessing for a caddy scholarship. His golf mentor is a rich heir (Chevy Chase, back when he was still funny) who’s into “Zen golf” and gives Danny advice like “Be the ball” and “A donut with no hole is a Danish”. To complicate matters, a real estate developer (Rodney Dangerfield) shows up with his entourage, looking, not to join the club but instead to buy it. This is the setup for the rest of the film. From the start, the expansive, profane, boorish Dangerfield character clashes with the anal, rigid, and tantrum-prone club president, Judge Smails. And, in the background, Bill Murray is the groundskeeper who’s been ordered to kill all the gophers on the course. Of course, this order comes from his Scottish boss, a man with an accent as thick as Guinness Stout, and Murray’s character Carl, replies “But if I kill all the golfers, they’ll lock me up and throw away the key!”

Anyway, that’s the basic premise. What makes CADDYSHACK work are the lead actors, as well as first rate scriptwriting. You normally wouldn’t think of a golf course as being the scene for great comedy, but with this bunch, anything goes. There’s tons of great dialog; Judge Smails “Danny, I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn’t want to, but I felt I owed it to them”, Dangerfield to a woman at the club “Last time I saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it!”, Carl to gopher “Don’t mind me, I’m just a harmless squirrel, not a plastic explosive or something”, and on and on. There’s great physical comedy, especially when Rodney goes berzerk with his massive yacht, crashing into anything and everything in sight, and Ted Knight, whose eyes seem to bulge of of their sockets at least once a minute. In short, CADDYSHACK was hilarious 42 years ago and it’s still hilarious today so don’t miss the opportunity to see it on the big screen!