From ‘Club Paradise’ to ‘Bedazzled’: Harold Ramis on the most “underappreciated” movies of his career
As an actor, the late Harold Ramis is best known for his role as bespectacled brainiac Egon Spengler in the Ghostbusters series. However, it could be argued that his biggest impact on cinema came behind the scenes. As a writer, he penned classics like National Lampoon’s Animal House and Stripes, and he was also behind the camera for the likes of Caddyshack and Groundhog Day. Basically, Bill Murray owes this man a lot.
Not all of Ramis’ efforts were winners. His 2000 remake of Bedazzled has aged like fine milk, and his final movie, 2009’s Year One, was a regrettably unfunny end to a stellar comedy career. If you had asked the man himself, he would have told you that most of his movies – particularly those he made in the 1980s and ’90s – don’t get the love they deserve.
“I don’t think they’re going to show Club Paradise, but that had some funny stuff in it,” he told Movieline. “Stuart Saves His Family was so underappreciated; I thought that was a really good movie. The others were well-known. They were just more or less well-attended. Bedazzled has a lot of people who like it. So does Multiplicity. But it didn’t move the needle in a big way.”
Club Paradise is the earliest film listed by Ramis, his third directorial effort following Caddyshack and National Lampoon’s Vacation. Its eclectic cast includes Robin Williams, Peter O’Toole, supermodel Twiggy, and legendary reggae singer Jimmy Cliff. The plot follows a group of tourists attempting to transform a ramshackle hotel on a Caribbean island into an elite getaway, featuring cameos from Ramis’ old buddies, including Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, and Rick Moranis.
Stuart Saves His Family was the first movie Ramis made after the success of Groundhog Day, which famously tarnished his relationship with frequent collaborator Murray. The film takes its cue from a series of sketches on Saturday Night Live starring Al Franken as the titular character. Multiplicity came out the following year and, unfortunately, continued Ramis’ downward turn.
It stars Michael Keaton as a construction worker who can create clones of himself, but each one has a different personality. Both of these movies underperformed both critically and at the box office, which is strange considering how much of a success Groundhog Day had been. Viewers clearly had no interest in a Ramis movie without Murray involved, which is a shame because all of them have their own merits. Well, except for Bedazzled.
When asked how he felt about audiences only remembering his bigger films, the director told a story about his ill-fated final release. “We had a less-than-satisfying first preview of Year One, and my co-producer said, ‘I hate that audience,'” he revealed. “I said, ‘It’s not the audience! Never blame the audience.’ Everyone won’t like everything. If I make a movie that 90% of the audience likes, well, that’s great, you know? But if I make a movie that only 60% of the audience likes, that doesn’t mean it’s a failure. It just means it was better suited to that 60%. They just got it a different way.”
Ramis definitely deserves more credit than he gets as both a performer and a comedic mind. Ghostbusters is a fine legacy and one that has endured for many years, even following his death in 2014, but fans of Dr Spengler should do themselves a favour and check out some of his other, often overlooked work.
