It's a Mad, Mad World (DVD)

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World(1962) is a fun, epic, big-budget madcap comedy directed by Stanley Kramer(Judgment at Nuremberg, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Bless the Beasts and the Children). Rat Race(2000) was made in the same vein. The film is like a giant banana split for us to enjoy. This film is a great comedy and a great action movie, as well. A mobster(Jimmy Durante) is injured in a car accident and he tells a dozen motorists about his hidden loot. It's "buried under a big W". The mobster kicks the bucket...quite literally! An assortment of people spend the next three hours trying to get to the money first and leave a trail of destruction! The main characters get punished in their attempts to get rich! Spencer Tracy plays a police officer who follows the trail of damage. Everyone from Jerry Lewis to The Three Stooges to Eddie Anderson to Jim Backus to Carl Reiner make cameos in this film. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World was made on a large budget of $9.4 million and filmed in Panavision/Cinerama widescreen format and Technicolor. Movie studios at the time were trying to compete with the TV industry and "woo back" consumers. "Santa Rosita Police Reports" played on speakers at the film's debut in 1962. The scene with Otto Meyer(Phil Silvers) driving his car into a river was spoofed on The Simpsons. This film sparked my interest in the late Edie Adams. She played Monica Crump in the movie. She was not only talented and funny, but she had a pretty face and a sexy, well-endowed body. Adams was the widow of comic actor Ernie Kovacs. At one point, this film was going to take place in Scotland, but Kramer put the story in the State of California in the United States of America. CBS used to show It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World on TV in the 1970's. I've seen the 2 hour, 40 minute version of the film. The Turner Classic Movies version and the VHS/BETA versions are longer. Some people claim that Stanley Kramer's cut of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World was 5 hours and 20 minutes long! Not everyone is a fan of this film. In one of my home video books, they only gave the film two stars! The music score by Ernest Gold is superb and catchy. The script by William and Tania Rose is loaded with slapstick humor. Dick Shawn is funny as a crazy "momma's boy". The late Dorothy Provine(That Darn Cat)is quite good in the film. Barrie Chase makes a brief cameo in the film dancing half-naked to 60's pop music! Terry Thomas is funny as a stereotypical English guy. I like the scene where Jonathan Winters destroys a gas station with his bare hands! Saul Bass and Bill Melendez crafted the animated credits for the film. Ethel Merman spends most of the film yelling at everyone! Merman guest starred as "herself" on a couple of That Girl episodes. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World was one of the most entertaining films of 1962 and the film's entertainment value is still intact.

It's a funny, funny, funny movie

First off Amazon.com has this as a 1:85 aspect ratio , which shows you can rarely trust their descriptions and be wary of reviewers who haven't watched this DVD/BR set or the extras. The true aspect ratio is more like 2:76 (pretty extreme) and those complaining of the quality of the "found" footage on the roadshow version probably haven't seen the bonus feature describing the process and the true quality of much of it.. but I digress. As a boomer and even more, a child of Southern California , this movie not only took me on a 3 hour tour (I couldn't resist) of places I knew and had been with my family ,and some near our home, but kept me laughing and enthralled and entertained without pause! Several years back I took my girlfriend,now fiancee , to see it at a 70mm film festival in Los Angeles. If you are unaware , this is one of the few films Hollywood in their ongoing ineptitude to create anything new and continually re making films etc will NEVER attempt to duplicate ,nor could they. This film features so many legendary comedians and they all seem to be happy with their differing sizes of parts , from cameos to features. I can't say that many of them were ever better in a major motion picture, before or after. My mother , to her last days would still laugh until she cried thinking of Dick Shawn in his convertible crying , while yelling "I'm coming momma"! In fact Dick Shawn's immortal line "Ya'll heard what Momma Said" (momma was Ethel Merman) was used by none other than Jeff Beck as an introduction to a song a few CDs back. Truly this film is ridiculously funny, epic, and a time capsule of amazing talents that were in many cases being phased out of the mainstream of the entertainment industry at that time in favor of the next generation of hopefuls. It seems everybody I know has a favorite bit from this film, from Jonathan Winters destruction of a small gas station, to Jim Backus as the drunk pilot with Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers is ridiculously funny and Jerry Lewis has a wonderful cameo, the GREAT Sid Caesar was never better in a feature film as well... and Jimmy Durante literally "kicking the bucket" starts it all off.... oh and Andrew Gold's father Ernest composed a wonderful merry go round of a film score!!! The existing DVD and Blu Ray were certainly appreciated , and the bonus features with extra scenes and the documentary with Director Kramer, welcome. I was happy with them and grateful to have them.... but I did dream of more of the footage I missed and remembered. I should add that I've kept this edition because the outstanding documentary was not added to the Criterion list of extras and for a huge fan of the film it is an essential part of the films history for me. But again, speaking of extras they take up a WHOLE DVD in the 3 DVD side of the set they are so long and wonderful. The Press junket stuff from the day isn't 3-4 minute movietone news nothing they are over a half hour each and several of these as well as a reunion in 1974 and a more recent reunion hosted by Billy Crystal. The more recent one is a bit tough at times as there are a few wheelchairs on stage but it is balanced by the smiling and youthful faces from the heyday of the original release and I cherish this rare and wonderful footage , several hours of bonus features! For my money, I'm thrilled with this package, I love the dual format discs.... I have a DVD player in my office/workout area and a BR in my living room and I don't think everybody has BR yet, believe it or not. I also love that Criterion looks for as many bonus features as they can find, and they have stuck in a tremendous batch of extras and enlighten and entertain. Unlike others I LOVE the packaging.... goodness the fold out with the Jack Davis (again being a boomer who didn't know his work from MAD magazine) artwork spread across several panels! The bonus sheet with the actual locations scenes were shot was particularly interesting to me as I knew most of them being a "local" but confirmation was cool and a few new spots surprised me. at under $30 , the amazon.com price, this is about the price of two tickets to a forgettable movie at your local mall..... and you have this immortal classic. I guess if you only have a casual interest the $10 version would be fine, but if you are a film buff this is the essential version. Considering the fact that sales of physical product , music and DVDs, has been in free fall for some time I applaud and thank Criterion. Those that nit pick and criticize should get their heads out of their behinds and do something themselves to find out how hard it is to get all the rights, releases, and research done as well as creating new features. The major studios have given up putting work into "legacy" titles and in many cases are not only NOT putting in extra features or even remastering , but often are issuing on DVDR format. Lets support Criterion and the other niche manufacturers that keep working on these valuable films.

This Review is for the DVD edition only as I don't have a blue ray player. I have seen this movie lots of times over the years. I seen the general release version and the TCM version. This new version-the extended cut seemed like a whole new movie. Robert Harris and his team has done a superb job on this film. Considering what they had to work with-imperfections in the video & Sound is to be expected-but they cleaned it up the best they could. So the minor issues with sound & Video don't really bother me. The theme of this movie is :What happens when ordinary people when there's $350.000 somewhere to be dug up? they get consumed by greed. Let us consider that some of these people were already crazy before there was any money to dig up. consider for example the mother in law(Who I call "The mother in law from hell")She's just a natural hard head-who doesn't like her money being invested in Russell's company that sells seaweed for people to eat "That costs over $4.00 a can!" This gives Russell a nervous breakdown and he runs out of his office and goes in the middle of the street and screams. There's Lennie Pike-Phil Silvers double crossed the wrong guy so much so that we have a gas station destroyed single handily by Pike. WE have Ding Bell and Benjy Benjamin who end up flying a plane because the pilot-who was drunk-gets hit in the head "It's the only way to fly" NOT!!!! Sid Ceaser and Wife Edie Adams nearly blown to bits in their attempts to get out of the locked Hardware store basement. They learned the hard way-Don't set off fireworks indoors! there's the brother in law-Sylvester-who has got to be the looniest fruit cake to ever grace the big screen! This is another guy you don't want to mess with-Lesson here is: Don't treat momma badly. He'll make sure they all listen to momma! Finally, we have Culpepper who was an honest cop until he learns that attempts made to have his pension increased failed-he makes plans to steal the money-unfortunately-being a cop isn't enough to keep the others from chasing him in two taxi cabs at 90 MPH! Because in truth he was no longer a cop the moment he gets his hands on the money-Orders were given over the radio to arrest Culpepper. Lets Back up a bit: The Big W. At the beginning, Smiler Grogan tells them about the money buried under the big w. They thought he meant A waterfall Or a Windmill or something else that starts with a w. They didn't know he meant that literally. Finally-they are all in the hospital except the women-until the mother in law slipped on a banana peeling. It was one hell of a day! I wonder what is the total damage-adjusted for Today's dollar? We have wrecked cars that didn't belong to them. Basement damaged by fire & Fire works. A damaged billboard. A fire truck ladder-it might even include the whole truck too. Buildings downtown that were destroyed when they crashed in to it. Shall we include Lincoln's statute too? Do I need mention Medical bills? I bet that none of them had insurance? Does anyone want to take a crack at estimating the total cost? I do have one minor complaint about the DVD case: the slip case is not the best way to store DVDs-though mine hasn't scratched. Why not use plastic cases? This is only minor issue and doesn't reduce my five star rating. I think we all owe Robert Harris and Criterion lots of gratitude for finally giving this film it due. No other film has suffered more from carelessness on the part of studios for not preserving all prints and footage of the film. It's not a perfect restoration-but it's the best we are likely to get in our lifetimes.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. And that it is. This is one of my all-time favourite comedy movies. But it's a pity Amazon only offers 5 stars for a rating, for I would like to have given it a "ten." I suppose many of you are too young to know most of these comedy stars. But if you are that young, and also a comedy fan, you may know of their work in movies and in the early days of television and former Broadways plays and musicals. Sid Caesar. Milton Berle. Ethel Merman. Dick Shaun. England's Terry- Thomas. Phil Silvers. Jonathan Winters; Buddy Hacket; Don Knotts. Jerry Lewis. Mickey Rooney. Cameos featuring Arnold Stang, Jack Benny, the Three Stooges and Buster Keaton. Jimmy Durante. And even a funny role for the wry Spencer Tracy. Edie Adams. Jim Backus. And many others which space and memory don't serve. This is a veritable feast of who's who in comedy. If you are a comedy junkie as I am, you will revel in it. Succinctly put, a whole group of people become involved with looking for unclaimed money from a robbery, in a place in Santa Rosita, California, revealed by a dying Jimmy Durante as being under the big Douba Yuh (W). How these people chase each other trying to get there first is screamingly hilarious as they wend their ways along roads and flyways through the Californian desert. There is far too much zany action to talk about here. I suppose everyone has a favourite segment. My husband's favourite is the airplane scene. Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hacket have never before flown a plane but must, when the owner of the plane, Jim Backus, passes out from too many old-fashions. In the control tower are Paul Ford and Carl Reiner, trying to talk them down and into a landing. What they all go through has to be seen to be believed I am torn between two segments. The first is an argument between Milton Berle and Terry-Thomas who nearly come to blows insulting each other's countries (of course, U.S. and Britain). Terry-Thomas asks - what is this American obsession with bosoms? (As if the Brits could talk!) He claims that if American women stopped wearing bras, the U.S. economy would collapse in a week! Not hilarious enough for you? Try the sequence with Sid Caesar and Edie Adams who inadvertently become locked in a hardware store's basement and all of Sid Caesar's crazy fixes on how to get out. Eventually, Sid manages to blow a hole in the wall and they walk through to the next store, covered in paint and plaster, to the stunned expressions of the workers in a Chinese laundry. I've seen this movie as often as I could on tv reruns and finally bought it for our collection because although I could live without it, I prefer not to. And I'm boringly predictable: I laugh all the time at the same scenes. The blurb on the back of the DVD says, "the most side-splitting laughfest in history". I'm not saying it's the "most" but it is way up there with the great comedies. The laughs and weird chases continue to the very end, where they all lie in a hospital recovery room with various broken bones from various madcap accidents. In fact, the ending has a scene of them all laughing uproariously at the same thing. It's all been madcap and mad, mad, mad, mad! Buy this only if: you enjoy being amused; you enjoy great comedy; you enjoy great masters of comedy. Otherwise, don't bother. It might make you laugh - and we don't want that to happen now, do we:? (tee hee)

Let me start off by saying that this is my all-time favorite motion picture; it's the very first movie that I can ever remember seeing and it left a lasting impression, so to give a review of the film would be totally biased. My rating is for the Bluray/DVD set only. Of course, the BIG draw to those who appreciate this film is the Restored Version, running nearly four hours long! A word of note: sadly, this is NOT the original roadshow release print, which United Artists stupidly lost/discarded, but kudos to Robert Harris and his team for doing the best possible job with the material they had to work with; some scenes have restored audio from the Roadshow version, but are missing the visual elements, and are replaced with stills to continue the action. Two examples of this are the deleted scene with Buster Keaton as "Jimmy the Crook", and a extra scene with Sylvester Marcus (the late, great Dick Shawn) and his "girlfriend" (the gorgeous...and gorgeously deadpan Barrie Chase) which actually sheds new light on their relationship! Plus, some of the footage looks to be too irreparably damaged, but as said, the restoration team did the best that they could with the materials and technology available, an overview of which appears as one of the supplements. This is the longest the film has EVER been available to the general public, and barring some miracle, may be the longest it ever will be. One other thing: this new version is also missing scenes from the PREVIOUS extended version (from Laserdisc and VHS). Now, if it was Director Kramer's wish that the footage NOT be added, and if it wasn't in the original Roadshow version to begin with, then they shouldn't be there, but it would have been nice if the extra lost footage were added as extras, which they aren't. In fact, the two sided DVD that MGM released had a set of outtakes containing some footage which I had NEVER seen before, and are NOT in EITHER of the extended versions! Plus, this set is missing the documentary "Something a Little Less Serious", so if you're a HUGH fan of this film like I am, you might want to hold on to your two-sided DVD. However, the supplements that ARE available are worthwhile: co-star Stan Freberg's radio and TV spots, introduced by Freberg himself, an audio commentary on the extended version (although sadly, not with surviving cast/crew but one of Criterion's "experts" commentaries, but the participants DO offer good insights), two episodes of the Canadian TV series "Telescope", following the film's press junket/premiere (and offers a showcase for the brilliant wit that was Jonathan Winters, may he rest in peace), a talk show hosted by Stanley Kramer (WHAT!?!), featuring Winters, Buddy Hackett and Sid Caesar as his guests, and the complete Mad World segment of The Last 70MM Film Festival, hosted by Billy Crystal, who interviews a panel featuring Winters, Chase, Carl Reiner (the famous celebrity), Freberg, Marvin Kaplan, Stanley Kramer's widow, legendary casting director Lynn Stalmaster (who pretty much discovered modern day Hollywood) and the incomparable Mickster, Ding Bell himself! Plus, there's a nice little doc discussing the sound and visual effects for the film, featuring Star Wars's Ben Burtt, that included behind the scenes footage of the production! What's interesting is most of what's talked about in the interview segments for "Serious" is discussed in the supplementary material, although stunt coordinator Cary Loftin, who was interviewed extensively for the old doc, was quite a character, and his presence is sorely missed. All in all, Criterion should be praised for the care that was put into this set. It's not perfect, but is worth the purchase. Also to be praised is Michael Cimino, who single-handedly destroyed United Artists with Heaven's Gate. Because of the shoddy treatment they gave to this wonderful film (which we may NEVER see in it's original form), their total failure was only what they deserved.

One of the funniest movie I have seen. Plenty of great actors in a great story.

There can never be a true remake of this classic comedy. A few have tried claiming they were "inspired by" but have failed anyway. Stanley Kramer's epic "Comedy to end all comedies" had an amazing cast of comic actors old and (at that time) new which could never be recreated. It is a snapshot of a particular moment in time when comedians stretching back to the borscht belt and vaudeville met up with a new generation of comics working in clubs and on television. In fact many who had had small careers in films had found a much larger audience in the relatively new medium of TV. It may not be the funniest film ever made - that is every person's own opinion - but it is funny and succeeds in the impossible task of keeping up an atmosphere of comic mayhem for over a 2 1/2 hour running time. Enormously popular in its day (it was the third highest grossing film of 1963 taking in over 45 million) it has become a greatly beloved classic even now, over fifty years later. It was written by British screenwriter William Rose, who had written the Alec Guiness comedy, The Ladykillers. It was written originally as a madcap chase through Scotland. He sent an outline to director Stanley Kramer. I'd love to know why, because Kramer was a director of big, serious films with important social messages like The Defiant Ones (racism), On the Beach (atomic war), Inherit the Wind (freedom of speech) and Judgement at Nuremberg (the aftermath of World War II). He would seem like the worst possible choice to pitch a comedy to, but maybe the word was out that Kramer was interested in making a comedy, perhaps to not be typecast. Once things got going, the production, much like the film itself, took on a momentum of its own and soon practically every comedian in town was calling Kramer asking to be in it. There are so many great actors in roles big, small and in cameos that it would take up too much space to name them all. It was great to see some of the older cast members like Jimmy Durante, Ethel Merman and Milton Berle go out with a big film that would be remembered. Actors in smaller roles often put in hilarious performances doing their usual schitck. Paul Ford as the bumbling Colonel Wilberforce (he had been the bumbling Colonel Hall on the Phil Silvers Show); Jim Backus as rich alcoholic Tyler Fitzgerald (it adds an extra laugh to know he was the well-known spokesman for Western Airlines whose tagline was "It's the only way to fly"); and Don Knotts in his nervous man routine. British comedian Terry-Thomas got roles in major pictures for years afterwards. Some faces, like Jesse White (TV's Maytag repair man) were only known from television exposure, which is probably missed by aOne would have wanted to see the cameo actors a little longer and some were underused (Stan Freberg, Edward Everett Horton) but the movie was originally over three hours as it was. The Three Stooges are only on for a few seconds and don't actually do anything but stand there but I can attest that they got a huge laugh from the audience just for being there. All of the principals were at their best. Even when they didn't have a line, just watching their faces is hilarious. But it was Jonathan Winters in his first film role who is most remembered. His eight minutes of total mayhem in Ray & Irwin's Garage is one of the great comic scenes in any movie. Again I can attest that in its first run in late '63 the audience was in a state of total sustained pandemonium almost literally rolling in the aisles as this scene played out. I've never again experienced an audience in so complete a state of hysteria. The film also has great support from the entire production team. There is one of the great comic scores of all time by Ernest Gold, a mad carousel-out-of control theme that wildly creates the right mood during legendary animator Saul Bass's creative title sequences. Despite its assertive character the music doesn't try to dominate the film but drops in now and then to enliven a driving scene that would look dull if silent or to accent brief moments of pandemonium. The film was beautifully shot in Super Panovision 70, which simulated a Cinerama effect without the "seams" created by the old three-camera process. And the scenery is spectacular with the Southern California desert, coastal towns and aerial footage. The editing, sound effects people and stuntmen were all major contributors to the film's success. Not everyone liked it and this is still true. A number of the critics of the day dismissed it as too dumb for words. But you have to understand that many critics of that era and before were very high toned and felt only films of great intellectual depth were worth seeing. Bergman, yes, but not something like this. It took until the early 80's for film critics to loosen up a bit and admit they could like both types of films. Others found it too long and too slapstick. Both accusations are true in their way but this was meant to be gargantuan and its excess is part of its nature. Also, a big film made with a big budget had to be pitched to a large general audience and so it needed to have lots of broad humor and not be a witty comedy of manners or something like that. Besides, it's kind of an homage to the whole history of film comedy and actually uses a lot of classic silent comedy bits. All in all the film knows exactly what it is doing, building on its momentum to its conclusion. And it's still a Stanley Kramer film and does contain a deep, cynical observation that totally nice, everyday people can go entirely insane over money as can the entire culture. The movie ends nicely with what could be a nod to Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, illustrating the value of laughter on the simplest level with the oldest joke in the world. Amazon's streamed film looks beautiful. I saw a streamed version a few years ago in the early days of streaming and it looked terrible because it had that over-sampling problem that made it look like daytime television, like it had been shot on somebody's video camera. I'm happy to say there's no trace of that. There are some great tributes, interviews and clips etc. on YouTube and I'd like to point out two really good ones. One posted by The Criterion Collection as "Location Comparison" shows many of the main locations then and now. There are others like this but this one is professionally shot at the exact camera angle as the film. The second is a "Cast Guide" that posts the name and dates of virtually everyone who appeared in the film while showing you a scene they're in. EXTRA NOTE: A few major comics wanted to be in the film but couldn't for one reason or another. Bob Hope's studio wouldn't lend him out even for a cameo. Lucille Ball was too tied up with her TV show being taped for the coming season. Red Skelton's manager wanted him to be paid the same as the primary cast even for a cameo. Stan Laurel sent regrets but said he had sworn never to appear in a film again after Oliver Hardy's death and could not break his word.