The new book “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella story,” is mostly a rehash of the history of National Lampoon magazine and the life story of the late humorist Doug Kenney. Those anecdotes can be found plenty of places.
But the chapters that get into the specifics of “Caddyshack” are interesting, especially insight into the movie being largely improvised, with the script ignored. The original plot focus (the love story between caddie Danny Noonan and waitress Maggie O’Hooligan) was minimized, and Bill Murray’s character (groundskeeper Carl Spackler) was pushed to the forefront.
Spackler wasn’t even in the original script.
The late Harold Ramis was a first-time director, and it showed: The movie’s original cut was four hours long.
One of the deleted scenes is below. Spackler and Ty Webb (Chevy Chase) are together on camera, something that happened just once in the finished movie: The famous “Playing Through” scene, which can also be viewed below.