It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World: C or D?

In its time (November 1963) the ultimate YOU WILL LAUGH movie comedy, top-lined by Spencer Tracy and a gaggle of mostly TV-famed comics, costing a then scandalous $9.4 million, produced and directed by a hectoring liberal filmmaker who'd just won Oscars for a Nazi war-crimes trial film that lost money.

I first saw it as a pre-adolescent on TV in the '70s, panned and scanned, for the first of several times; the stars were mostly still alive and familiar, though my favorite (and the consensus scene thief) is/was easily Jonathan Winters. Now out from The Criterion Collection (three DVDs, two Blu-rays in one package).

Is it funny? Does it matter? yt, Glenn Kenny, Steve Winer:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/its-a-mad-mad-mad-mad-world

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2014/02/nostalgia-for-the-rejected.html

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3044-my-mad-mad-mad-mad-world

loved it when I was a kid, kind of want to rewatch just to see if it's actually funny

not that great as a movie, but pretty classic for the title credits and music, which are prime-60s whimsical orchestral greatness

Michael Gebert insists Ethel Merman deserved an Oscar for that performance.

all my memories of this are predicated on being home sick and watching it through a haze of meds while half asleep. in that context it is v entertaining

The Criterion supplement on the visual and sound effects is maybe the best of its kind I've ever seen.

I really think it could've been improved if 20 minutes in, they had taped Merman's mouth and put her in a car trunk.

also, she gets knocked over and shows us her bloomers 3 times; in the restored edition, four.

all my memories of this are predicated on being home sick and watching it through a haze of meds while half asleep. in that context it is v entertaining

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, February 18, 2014 12:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. It's also in a certain category of handed-down-from-my-parents comedy, along with episodes of Flying Circus that were completely over my head at the time but funny anyway.

I watched a big chunk of it on TCM a few weeks ago and remember a few smiles but not a lot of laffing.

It does have a certain "Price is Right" chicken soup quality that is very seventies and eighties.

movies done in a busy/claustrophobic caricature style

If you have any nostalgic affection for the movie or that era of showbiz, def worth a weekend rental or a discount purchase to watch all the extras.

It's funny how its success inspired two separate waves of imitators -- immediately, stuff I've never bothered to see like Blake Edwards' The Great Race or Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Then when the baby-boomers grew up to be directors, we got 1941, The Blues Brothers, Rat Race, and a wave of cheaper cash-ins like Hal Needham-Burt Reynolds movies and, I would argue, spectacle-comedies like Ghostbusters. So I think the Mad Mad review I saw somewhere that the movie's reputation suffered from all the crap it spawned is somewhat true.

I saw It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on the big screen at my local movie palace when it was in its original release, after it had slipped into the second run theaters and you could get cheap matinee seats. I was 9 years old and I liked it, although I was so young that for me sexuality was little more than a cartoonish idea that had something to do with va-va-voom and hubba-hubba. This may not have been much of a handicap in terms of the humor of the movie.

Y'all forgot to vote: Dick Shawn : Pick One Of Three Poll

There's one or two bits in the roadshow version that read as pretty crass for a family-aimed crowdpleaser, like a Dick Shawn throwaway line about rape, and Edie Adams stroking her thigh while saying something to Sid Caesar (after he's failed to bust down the hardware basement door) like "Can't you get it done?" "You know I'm trying..."

Supposedly Shawn and Winters were a bit competitive on the set since they were the two relatively young "out there" comedians.

Anyway, don't know if Stanley Kramer is the greatest director or the stars were in their prime or at their best, but just to see them at all is nothing to sneeze at.
(xp)

obv I never got to see Buddy Hackett's filthy nightclub act, but he gets 3 big laughs in the first scene alone, and then in the plane: "Whatta you, the HOSTESS?" And the glance with Tracy near the end is really amazing (ID'd as such by Charles Grodin in one of the Criterion extras).

For a Brit, this has always been a chance to see performers like Milton Berle or Sid Caesar who otherwise don't mean that much here (tho we are nuts abt Bilko, hence Phil Silvers turning up in Carry On Follow That Camel a few years later...)

Milton Berle and Sid Caesar don't mean that much to anyone under 60 here, either...

Oscar-nominated theme song lyrics perpetrated by Hal David's brother Mack:

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world
In France the girls wear scanties
While on lamb chops they put panties
I'm telling you it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

A Japanese named Luey
Says the Chinese hate chop suey
Without a doubt
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

The only thing you are sure of
Is that nothing is sure
Have a ball, live it up, only fools give it up
Toujours the amour, but toujours

So be a happy gaffer,
Be a screamer, be a laugher
Let boys be gay and say, "What the hey"
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

My dear old Uncle Herman
Says that French Toast should be German
Jawohl, that's right
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

I know it may sound jerky
But in Turkey who eats turkey
Yes, yes, confess
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

Our traffic is so congested
Mass confusion on wheels
But Detroit is adroit, what they'll do in Detroit
Is make bigger automobiles

So be a happy fellow
Be a clown, boy, Punchinello
Get off the shelf and enjoy yourself
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad
It's a mad, it's a mad, it's a mad, it's a mad world!

Milton Berle and Sid Caesar don't mean that much to anyone under 60 here, either...

What are you talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CZyS0UDA0k

yes, the one thing under-40s wd remeber of Berle.

I didn't realize the end of the Rooney-Hackett plane adventure was directly lifted by Airplane!

Not to mention Follow That Bird.

also this was nominated for SIX Oscars. It was like Gravity with a couple extra laughs.

This is true. Gravity is the shortest best picture nominee since It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

why wasn't that quip on the Gravity poster?

It was like Gravity Ghandi with a couple extra laughs.

(cute, tho it was not nominated for BP -- Winters and the movie got Golden Globe nominations) xxp

is it wrong that I want this set but think i would prefer the extras to the movie itself?

They are probably at least as rewatchable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6ZfVe7sJDQ

Phil Silvers supposedly almost drowned in that scene

geez, Long Beach was part cowtown 50 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCcownGNYM

http://criterioncollection.tumblr.com/post/142310149406/thesimpsonsreferences-homer-the-vigilante-vs

D D D D

my favorite (and the consensus scene thief) is/was easily Jonathan Winters ETHEL FUCKING MERMAN.

"SYLVESTERRRRR!!!!"

too loud