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It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
(Blu-ray)
Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Ethel
Merman, Spencer Tracy, all-star cast
MGM
Gerard Rejskind: This long comedy
is from the 60’s, but not the real 60’s.
Stanley Kramer (known for such films at
Judgement at Nuremberg and Guess Who’s
Coming to Dinner) made it in 1963, the
year before the cultural revolution that
began with the emergence of the Beatles.
Its spirit is actually that of the 1950’s,
76 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
and I do not mean that as a compliment.
However it has a couple of redeeming
qualities I shall get to in a moment.
Here’s the setup. A number of tourists,
some related and some not, are
passed on a dangerous mountain curve
WHY A FREE ISSUE
by an elderly motorist (Jimmy Durante)
who drives off the road, and — in an era
before seat belts — is “thrown clear.”
Before We remember he kicks when the a bucket number (all of competitors too would
put literally, on line and only if it’s only subtlety the cover you image want, and the table of
you should look to some contents. other film),
We he would reveals tell that them he buried that you a treasure don’t go in fishing a without bait.
Sure, California we live park. from The what tourists you spend decide through to our site and
the find pages the treasure of our and print split issue. it up, But but you their could spend days
agreement falls reading apart within material moments, for free. than pure.
We and think soon that’s it is every the only man, way and woman, we can convince for you of the
him/herself. UHF difference,
of why This you very might long want film, to trust shot us in with what the future of your
was still billed music as or Cinerama home theatre but system. was
We actually have readers Super Panavision, on every continent is loaded except Antarctica.
with sight Most gags, of and them no cliché discovered is so hoary us on line.
that it cannot They read be used a lot at of least our free twice. material.
The saving grace And is, then however, they joined that the us.
large cast includes nearly every comic
of the age, including many who are still
remembered and revered half a century
later. The major characters are played
by Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Buddy
Hackett, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Andy
Devine, Don Knotts and even Buster
Keaton. And then there are walk-ons
by the likes of Jack Benny, Howard Da
Silva, Carl Reiner, and even The Three
Stooges. Where else can you see these
comedy stars of the golden age, not
on grainy kinescopes, but in 70 mm
widescreen? Nowhere, that’s where.
I’ve already alluded to this film’s
running time, which —like its title — is
longer than it absolutely has to be, and
to fill up all that time the screenwriters
resort to plot twists that were ancient
when movie cameras were still handcranked.
One of the competing couples
attempts to win the race by chartering a
plane, but a second couple does exactly
the same. There are problems with both
planes, but different ones, with neither
getting any points for either originality
or plausibility. One couple goes to a
hardware store for picks and shovels in
order to dig up the treasure, but accidentally
gets locked in, and uses every
cliché there is in an attempt to get out (a
lot of it involves explosives). The Buddy
Hackett character has a difference of
opinion with a gas station owner, and it
all ends with nothing of the station left
standing. I admit to laughing. A lot.
There are two major characters I
have not yet mentioned. Singer Ethel
Merman, at her shrillest and brassiest,
is the mother in law from hell, and is
the butt (I use the word advisedly) of
sexist joke after sexist joke, many of
them involving her underpants, which
make the Sears catalog of the time seem
racy. And there is the wonderful Spencer
Tracy as the police captain who is
tracking the movements of this unlikely
bunch, but whose motives may be less
Is this movie funny? Sure it is, and
many of the laughs are delivered by
people who were the very best in the
business. Expect to wince twice for each
time you laugh, but in a movie of this
length you still get a pretty fair payoff.
At least you do until the end.
Then writers William and Tania
Rose fall off the diving board, with the
most agonizingly awful denouement one
can imagine. I won’t describe it, because
watching it again was bad enough, but
there should be a “critics’ cut,” which
would omit the last awful 10 minutes and
move straight to the final credits. You’ve
been warned.