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It’s a little hard to explain why it might be, but It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World might just be my favorite movie of all time. The first time I saw it was probably thirty-five years ago or so now, during one of the annual New Year’s Eve showings on television, and it set me dreaming of myself rakish and dissolute in a heavy steel-bodied convertible with a woman in a satin gown, racing across the California desert towards the Big W. Dreams I still have today, half a lifetime later. This site is my tribute to a movie I love, to a time that is lost, and in some ways, to the child I was, sitting in a warm living room in the far frozen north of Canada with my bowl of salt and vinegar chips, dreaming of a life full of laughter and adventure and wacky hijinks [read more].
The site is still under development, so please excuse any minor brushfires, explosions, or zombie attacks.
The Movie
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was released on November 7, 1963, just two weeks before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It’s an adventure comedy film directed by Stanley Kramer about a diverse and colorful group of strangers who fall into a madcap pursuit of
$350,000 of stolen cash across southern California, and its large ensemble cast features a veritable who’s who of comedians and actors, with dozens of major comedy stars from all eras of cinema appearing in major and minor roles, including many brief cameos. Filmed in Ultra Panavision 70 and presented in Cinerama, the film followed the 1960s “epic” trend which attempted to lure audiences away from television and back to the movies. [read more]
The Cast
The movie features a veritable who’s who of Hollywood comedy from the middle of the twentieth century, including major and minor appearances by Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Spencer Tracy,
Jonathan Winters, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, William Demarest, Jimmy Durante, Peter Falk, Jim Backus, Jack Benny, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis, The Three Stooges and literally dozens of others. [read more]
The Story
The movie opens high over the desert. A car is speeding, nearly out of control, along the narrow highway. Suddenly, the driver loses control and the sails off a cliff. Four other vehicles stop to help. The dying man, thrown from his car, tells the drivers about $350,000
that he has hidden below a giant “W” in seaside Santa Rosita, some 200 miles away. The four drivers and their respective passengers can’t decide on how to share out the future fortune, and the race to be the first to reach Santa Rosita begins. [read more]
The Movie Today
The official release from MGM is the 161-minute general release version, taken from the original 35mm elements. Because of this, it is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, as opposed to the full 2.75:1 in anamorphic 70 mm form.
The film has been released twice on DVD. The first, from 2001, is a double-sided disc containing an hour of missing scenes on the second side, along with the original documentary “Something A Little Less Serious”, and trailers and TV spots. In 2003, the film was released on DVD as a movie-only edition, with disc art on the disc as opposed to being dual-sided. [read more]
Links
There aren’t a lot of resources out there in the wild for information about the movie, but there are a few fans, like me, who have put up some great material, and there’s even a podcast about the movie.
Click through for some links to help slake your thirst for even more information about It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World!
About This Site
It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World! was released almost two years after I was born, and I grew up watching it every time it played on TV in the 1970s. I spent the early 80s in University, and the next fifteen years or so travelling, and I almost forgot
about the movie until a few years ago, when random wandering on the web reminded me of it, and how much it had meant to me when I was young. I bought this domain a few years ago intending to build a tribute site, and putting it off until now. So here we are. [read more]