It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Encyclopedia
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a 1963 American comedy film
produced and directed by Stanley Kramer
about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers. The ensemble
comedy premiered on November 7, 1963.
), suspect in a tuna factory robbery 15 years before and on the run from the police, recklessly passes a number of vehicles on a twisting, mountainous road in the Mojave Desert
of Southern California
before careening his car off a cliff and crashing. Five motorists from four of the passed vehicles stop to assist: Melville Crump (Sid Caesar
), a dentist; Lennie Pike (Jonathan Winters
), a furniture mover; Dingy Bell (Mickey Rooney
) and Benjy Benjamin (Buddy Hackett
), two friends on their way to Las Vegas; and J. Russell Finch (Milton Berle
), an entrepreneur. Just before he kicks the bucket
(his foot literally hits a bucket as he dies), Grogan tells the Samaritans about $350,000 buried in Santa Rosita State Park near the Mexican border, under a "Big W". Initially, the motorists try to reason with one another on how to share the money, but when they can't agree on any one particular distribution, it soon becomes an all-out race to get to the loot first.
Meanwhile, Captain T. G. Culpepper (Spencer Tracy
) of the Santa Rosita Police Department has been patiently working on the Grogan case for 15 years, hoping to someday solve it and retire with honor. Learning of the fatal crash, he suspects that "Smiler" might have given one or more of the witnesses a clue to the stolen loot's location and has police units track their movements.
Everyone experiences multiple setbacks en route to the money. Crump and his wife Monica (Edie Adams
) charter a shabby World War I-era biplane to Santa Rosita but get stuck in the basement of a hardware store there. They wreck the place in various failed escape attempts before blasting a hole in the wall with dynamite.
Dingy and Benjy convince pilot Tyler Fitzgerald (Jim Backus
) to shuttle them to Santa Rosita in his modern twin-engine aircraft. Fitzgerald carelessly lets them operate the controls while he makes drinks in the back of the plane. He is soon knocked unconscious, and the confused pair have to fly and land the plane on their own.
On the ground, two cab drivers, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Peter Falk
, who respectively whisk Dingy and Benjy away from the airport, and Crump and Monica from the hardware store, also get in on the hunt.
Pike's furniture truck crashes into the car containing Finch, his wife Emmeline (Dorothy Provine
), and his overbearing dictatorial mother-in-law, Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman
). The three persuade Pike to ride off for help on a bicycle, then flag down British
army Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne (Terry-Thomas
), to get them to Santa Rosita and ignore Pike on the roadside nearby. After many arguments, most caused by Mrs. Marcus, she and Emmeline refuse to go any farther, and Finch and Hawthorne leave them behind.
Pike tries to get motorist Otto Meyer (Phil Silvers
) to take him to Santa Rosita but foolishly tells him about the scheme, prompting the greedy Meyer to race for the money himself. Pike, outraged, destroys a service station at which Meyer has been forced to stop due to a tire blowout. After the rampage, Pike steals the station's tow truck and later picks up Mrs. Marcus and Emmeline. Mrs. Marcus calls her beach bum son Sylvester (Dick Shawn
), who lives near Santa Rosita, to look for the loot, but the Oedipally-obsessed Sylvester races hysterically to the defense of his mother instead. Meyer experiences his own setbacks, including losing his car in a river. All the while, the police secretly track their activities while Culpepper bides his time.
Eventually, all of the interlopers arrive at the state park and begin searching for the "Big W", overseen by Captain Culpepper, disgruntled at being promised a too-small pension and secretly intent on keeping all of the loot for himself. He orders all policemen to leave the area and waits for the others to retrieve the money. Emmeline, the only one who wanted no part of the scheme, is the first to recognize the "Big W" - four large palm trees standing at odd angles. As the watching Culpepper steps out of the bushes and greets her, she unwittingly reveals the location to him and suggests they split the money. Soon Pike and the others notice the palm trees as well and frantically begin digging beneath them, while Culpepper quietly mixes in with the non-diggers. After a suitcase containing the loot is dug up and opened, the group argues about the money's distribution. Culpepper then identifies himself, takes the suitcase, and suggests to the stunned ensemble that they turn themselves in, stating that a jury might be more lenient if they do. Initially taking Culpepper's advice, the defeated claimants climb into the two taxis and drive out of the park.
But when the two taxicab groups notice Culpepper heading away from Santa Rosita with the money, they immediately reverse direction and follow him, foiling his plan to hop a boat bound for Mexico. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to reach Culpepper by radio, the police department realizes what he is doing and revokes his newly-trebled pension — secured for him by Police Chief Aloysius' (William Demarest
) arm twisting — and orders Culpepper's arrest.
At the end of the chase, all eleven men in the group are stranded high up on an abandoned building. While trying to keep from falling off the building's disintegrating fire escape, the men lose control of the suitcase containing the money, and all $350,000 flutters down to the astonished crowd watching below, who quickly gather it up. The men then simultaneously attempt to climb down an extended fire truck ladder, but their combined weight makes the firemen lose control of the ladder, which gyrates wildly, flinging them off in various directions.
The dejected men, now immobile in a prison hospital in bandages and casts, blame one another for their predicament as well as criticizing Culpepper for seizing the money. Replying that their sentences likely will be lighter because he will probably take most of the blame in court, ex-Captain Culpepper adds that perhaps in ten or twenty years, there will be something about all this he can laugh about. A sympathetic Benjy throws a banana peel on the floor as the nagging Mrs. Marcus (flanked by Monica and Emmeline) enters, scolding all of the hospitalized men for everything. When Mrs. Marcus promptly slips on the banana peel and is carried off on a gurney, all the injured men, including Culpepper, begin to laugh hysterically.
Secondary
Cameo appearance
s
See for names and pictures of many of the cast members. The film's opening credits list forty-eight names clearly: all of the 'main' and 'secondary' names above and twenty-nine of the 'cameo appearances', each group approximately or exactly in alphabetical order, though not grouped according to the 'main', 'secondary', 'cameo appearances' groups above. An 'explosion' displays other names not in any of the three lists, including Ade Woolely, Irene Wyman, Bernard Halderson, Bernards Kids, Mary Mathews, Carl Pederson, Oscar Hansson's, Federal Internal Revenue, Francis A. Smith, Bernie Gruver, Carl Person, Danny Smith, Kennedy's, Torty Maumau, Mad Mad Dog Gees, Los Angeles, Elenor Faith, Mary Cane, Ed Levit Artist, Colonal Rhe, Understable, Yorty, McKinley, Tab Collar, Art Goodman, Hugh Childs, Bob Carlson, Bill Melendez (see below), and a smattering of letters and otherwise unassociated names, all of which drop out to show five (Stang, Stewart, Stooges, Tong, White) of the twenty-nine. Right after the 'explosion', the last 'secondary' cast member mentioned is Durante.
Film and television comedian Ernie Kovacs
was originally scheduled to play the character "Melville Crump" before his untimely death in an automobile accident on January 13, 1962. Kramer subsequently filled the role with comedian Sid Caesar
. Kovacs' wife, Edie Adams
, remained on board as Caesar's screen wife, in part due to the enormous tax obligations that Ernie left behind.
Of the film's many actors and actresses, as of November 2011, only Caesar, Chase, Clarke, Freberg, Georgiade, Glenn, Kaplan, Lewis, Bob Mazurki (youngest), Reiner, Rooney (oldest), and Winters were believed to be still alive, evident from the cast members' biographies and other available information. Kennedy (1885) and Horton (1886) were born the earliest, while (excluding Bob Mazurki (1952)) Rhue (1935) and Provine (1935) were born the latest. Harvey died the youngest (51) and earliest (1963), and, to date, Falk died the latest (2011), Lane died the oldest (102). Tracy died more than eight years before Ford, the second of the main or secondary cast members to die. Wally Brown
was going to be given a role but died not long before filming began.
Judy Garland
, Groucho Marx
, Stan Laurel
, George Burns
, Bob Hope
, Jackie Mason
, Don Rickles
, Judy Holliday
, and Red Skelton
were among the many celebrities offered or considered for roles in the film. Ethel Merman
's role was originally written for Groucho (as Finch's father-in-law), who reportedly demanded too much money; so the part was rewritten. Laurel did not want to be seen in his old age, especially without Oliver Hardy
, who died in 1957.
, then living in the UK
, conceived the idea for a film (provisionally titled Something a Little Less Serious) about a comedic chase through Scotland
. He sent an outline to Kramer, who agreed to produce and direct the film. (The setting was subsequently shifted to America and the working title changed to One Damn Thing After Another and then It's a Mad World, with Rose and Kramer adding additional Mads to the title as time progressed.)
Although well known for serious films such as Inherit the Wind
and Judgment at Nuremberg
(both starring Tracy), Kramer set out to make the ultimate comedy film. Filmed in Ultra Panavision 70
and presented in Cinerama
(becoming one of the first single-camera Cinerama features produced), Mad World also had an all-star cast, with dozens of major comedy stars from all eras of cinema appearing in the film.
The film followed a Hollywood trend in the 1960s of producing "epic" films as a way of wooing audiences away from television
and back to movie theaters. Box-office revenues were dropping, so the major studios experimented with a number of gimmicks to attract audiences, including widescreen
films.
The title was taken from Thomas Middleton's
1605 comedy
A Mad World, My Masters
. Kramer considered adding a fifth "mad" to the title before deciding that it would be redundant, but noted in interviews that he later regretted it.
The film's theme music was written by Ernest Gold with lyrics by Mack David
. In the 1970s, ABC
broadcast the film on New Year's Eve. The last reported showing of the film on major network television was on CBS on May 16, 1978.
.
The opening live action scenes, where "Smiler" Grogan drives off the road, and subsequent scenes when the four vehicles briefly speed down the mountain before slowing down and stopping so that the drivers can talk, were filmed on the “Seven Steps” section (also known as "Seven-Level Hill") of the Palms-to-Pines Highway (California State Highway 74), a generally east-west route mostly south of, and west of, the city of Palm Desert, California
. The rocky point where Durante's car sails off into space, known by Mad World fans as "Smiler's Point," can easily be spotted today on Highway 74, minus the man-made, temporary ramp that helped the car go airborne.
Many of the scenes that take place on what look like lonely stretches of road were filmed in areas of Southern California that have since been developed in the decades following the movie's production. Culpepper predicts that the vehicles — generally going east — will head south (a right turn). Not so long after, in a desert highway scene, the four speeding vehicles travel (presumably) somewhat westbound down a slight incline to a "T" intersection and begin to make sweeping left turns (southbound) onto the cross street. The moving van driven by Winters cuts diagonally across a sandy patch of desert adjacent to an intersection. This stunt was performed at the southeast corner of Ramon Road and Bob Hope Drive (Rio del Sol Road at the time) in Palm Desert. The sandy, barren terrain that the moving van cuts across is now the paved and landscaped parking lot of the Agua Caliente Indian Resort & Casino
.
During the scene immediately before the start of the mad dash for the $350,000 loot, Crump incorrectly calculates Bell's and Benjamin's share of the cash under his '25 total share plan' as $97,000 rather than $98,000 (7 shares x $14,000/share). Thus, when Crump's stated figures are added the sum is only $349,000.
In the scene where Jack Benny
encounters Berle's character and his group, the entire area, which was practically open desert in the film, is now a modern suburban neighborhood in Yucca Valley
. Likewise, the scene in which Caesar is momentarily blinded by an unfurled road map, which results in all four vehicles zig-zagging behind one another on a desolate desert road, was filmed as the cars traveled northbound on Rio del Sol Road in Palm Desert. This stretch of roadway is now populated with numerous residences, condominium complexes, and retail businesses and has been widened into a four-lane boulevard.
Many of the actors performed some of their own stunts, including some crashing falls by Caesar, physical antics by Winters, and Silvers' drive into a flowing Kern River
, where he almost drowned. Caesar severely injured his back while filming the hardware store scene and was unable to return to the film for some time. Winters had been left tied to a chair while the rest of the cast went to lunch, and when the cast returned an hour later, Winters said, "When I get out of this chair, gang, you [meaning Kaplan and Stang] belong to me" and gave the two a lecture on forced potty training. Silvers injured himself shortly before the shooting of the scene in which the men chase Tracy up several flights of stairs and onto a fire-escape, so Silvers' stunt double stood in for him.
The gas station scenes with Marvin Kaplan
and Arnold Stang
, first with Berle, Merman, Provine, and Terry-Thomas, and later with Silvers and Winters, were filmed at a specially constructed set built on composer Jimmy Van Heusen's property near Palm Springs, California
. Van Heusen first saw the completed gas station on his Friday drive from Los Angeles out to his weekend retreat. He did not know the gas station was a film set, thinking instead that his business manager had leased a portion of his property for an actual service station. The destruction scene with Winters, Kaplan, and Stang was filmed that weekend, with the site cleanup scheduled for the next week (Stang filmed the entire scene nursing a broken wrist in a cast covered by a thick work glove). On Monday morning's return trip to Los Angeles, Van Heusen saw the destroyed gas station and thought something terrible had happened, fearing he might be sued by injured parties.
During shooting of the gas station's destruction, Winters, whose character was the one who toppled the water tower with a tow truck, asked to be the one who backed the truck into the tower. Though two of the tower's legs were rigged with hidden cables which were pulled from offscreen to make the tower fall away from the truck, Kramer overruled Winters, saying that he could not be certain in which direction the tower would fall and thus could not guarantee the actor's safety.
The airport terminal scenes were filmed at the now-defunct Rancho Conejo Airport in Newbury Park, California
, though the control tower shown was constructed only for filming. Other airplane sequences were filmed at the Sonoma County Airport north of Santa Rosa, California
; at the Palm Springs International Airport
; and in the skies above Thousand Oaks
, Camarillo
, and Orange County
.
In the Orange County scene, stuntman Frank Tallman
flew a Beech model C-18S
through a highway billboard advertising Coca-Cola
. A communications mix-up resulted in the use of linen graphic sheets on the sign rather than paper, as planned. Linen, much tougher than paper, damaged the plane on impact. Tallman managed to fly it back to the airstrip, discovering that the leading edges of the wings had been smashed all the way back to the wing spars. Tallman considered that incident the closest he ever came to dying on film. (Both Tallman and his business partner and fellow flier on Mad World, Paul Mantz
, would eventually die in separate air crashes over a decade apart.)
In another scene, Tallman flew the plane through an airplane hangar at about 150 knots, with only 23 feet of clearance from wingtips to walls and only 15 feet from the top of the tail to the hangar ceiling. Known as the Butler Building, the hangar was built during World War II
and is still in use today at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, next to the Pacific Coast Air Museum, in Santa Rosa
, California.
In the film, the airplane is shown crashing through an airport restaurant's plate glass window and stopping abruptly. Shot in an open hangar made to look like a restaurant, no special effects were used in this scene, which was filmed with the actors and plane (with real propellers destroying the window framework) in the same space at the same time. Careful viewing of this incredibly dangerous shot reveals an arresting cable that was tied to the tail of the airplane at just the right length to make the aircraft stop as it hit a curbing.
Part of the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
retirement community, in Woodland Hills, is visible in the background of the scene where characters Lenny Pike and Mrs. Marcus (in the tow truck Pike stole from the service station he destroyed in his rampage) stop at an intersection (of present-day Mulholland Drive
, Valley Circle Boulevard, Avenue San Luis, and Calabasas Road) before making a U-turn. Kramer died in the hospital of the retirement community in 2001. Anderson (1977), Durfee (1975), and Rhue (2003) also died there.
Although the fictional city of Santa Rosita was really shot in Long Beach, California
; Rancho Palos Verdes, California
; San Pedro, California; and Santa Monica, California
; Santa Rosita's location on a map in the police station scenes was (supposedly) south of San Diego, California
, and north along the coast from Mexico
, hence Culpepper's attempt to flee there. In reality, San Diego's southern city limits border Mexico, and the southernmost "X" on the police station map would also be in San Diego, somewhere between the eastern part of Imperial Beach, California
and the southern part of Chula Vista, California
.
The YMCA at Long Beach Boulevard at 6th Street in Long Beach stood in for the police station. In one shot near the YMCA, a sign for Cormier Chevrolet, southwest of the station, and Sears store signs, north of the station, appear. Neither the YMCA, nor Cormier Chevrolet, nor Sears currently exist in the area (Cormier Chevrolet relocated to its current site, several miles northwest of downtown Long Beach on the San Diego Freeway
, in 1965). However, a Sears store sign also appears above and several businesses away from the hardware store from which Crump and Monica exit, via a Chinese laundry. Combined with other information available from the film, the likely conclusions are that the police station is less than three blocks total from the hardware store and that the Sears store was split between nearby locations.
"Santa Rosita State Park" was actually a private estate locally known as "Portuguese Point" near Abalone Cove Shoreline Park, Rancho Palos Verdes
. None of the "Big W" remains, the last palm having fallen in the 1990s-2000's, although in 2011 homeschooler Price Morgan and internet film maker James Rolfe separately found an angled palm tree stump on the location, which they believed may be the remains of the "Big W". This film location is off-limits to the general public, though the stump can easily be viewed by climbing a hill that is around 100 feet to the east of the house. This hill is gated to vehicles but the public is allowed. Through the years, the property has taken on a noticeable slant toward the ocean, due to the slow but ongoing Portuguese Bend
landslide.
The final chase scene actually started in Santa Monica
, most notably on Pacific Coast Highway
, at the California Incline. At the intersection, the cabs turned left, briefly heading east, then parked, while the police car turned right, heading west, on Pacific Coast Highway. The cabs chased the police car west to Malibu, past Corral Canyon Road and Solstice Canyon Road, nearly as far as Point Dume, to Puerco Canyon Road, down to and east along Malibu Road (although the shots supposedly along Malibu Road were actually filmed at the southern end of South Victoria Avenue in Oxnard, California
). In reality, Puerco Canyon Road is east, not west, of Corral Canyon Road and Solstice Canyon Road and of Point Dume. The little that's left of the southern branch of Puerco Canyon Road still intersects with Malibu Road, but the part just to the west of Cher
's residence that connected to Pacific Coast Highway is no longer accessible. The ensemble then traversed the path in the opposite direction and continued south to Long Beach, California
, where the cars passed The Pike
amusement park with its wooden roller coaster, and traveled around the Rainbow Pier. The Arcade under Ocean Boulevard near Pine Avenue is also part of the scene. Near the end of the chase scene, in Long Beach, the vehicles turn by the no-longer-existing Farmers & Merchants Bank branch at or near Long Beach Boulevard and Anaheim Street and, not long after, head east on East 10th Street, turn south onto Long Beach Boulevard (against one-way traffic heading north, with the first cab running over a fire hydrant just outside Daigh's Garage, immediately south of Square Deal Radiator Service, all on the east side of the street), then turn west onto the 200 block of East 9th Street (identified by a street name sign, initially visible to the viewer's left). The abandoned building was on East Broadway in downtown Long Beach. The matte painting for the long shot of the plaza required 21 exposures for the composite, seven elements times three color separations.
The fire escape and ladder miniature used in the final chase sequence is on display at the Hollywood Museum in Hollywood. Also, the Santa Rosita Fire Department's ladder truck was a 1960's Seagrave Fire Apparatus
open-cab Mid-Mount Aerial Ladder. Portions of the life-size building and fire escape were constructed on the Universal Studios
back lot.
Many modern photos exist of the areas used for the filming.
Silvers, a compulsive gambler, had a running crap game
going during the production. According to Something a Little Less Serious: A Tribute to 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World', a 1991 documentary included on the DVD version, Jerry Lewis
, who has a cameo appearance in the film, reportedly stopped by the set and left $500 poorer.
Veteran stuntman Carey Loftin
was also featured in the documentary, explaining some of the complexity as well as simplicity of stunts, such as the day he "kicked the bucket" as a stand-in for Durante.
Kaplan, Provine, and Falk all appeared in the similarly themed Blake Edwards
comedy The Great Race
two years later.
70mm
run, United Artists, seeing that it had a mammoth hit on its hands, cut the film to 161 minutes without Kramer's involvement in order to add an extra daily showing. The general release 35mm
version runs 154 minutes, with overture and exit music excised. At the film's premiere, radio transmissions between the film's fictional police played in the theater lobby and rest rooms during the intermission. The police transmissions featured Detective Matthews (Charles McGraw) and the police personnel that follow the group. These three reports (each approx. one minute in length) may have added to the 210-minute length.
Some of the cut footage remains missing; 20 minutes of material was not found. MGM/UA also located a 20-minute 70 mm preview reel that contained a few scenes in their entirety. These two 70mm reels provided the extra scenes for the "Special Edition version with restored footage" project of 1991. No out-take footage was used, with the exception of a two-second wide shot of the Beechcraft aircraft, needed to bridge a highly sought-after bit of Buddy Hackett being doused with a bucket of water.
While not officially referring to it as a director's cut, Kramer helped oversee the re-incorporation of this missing footage into a 182-minute "special edition" video version for VHS
and Laserdisc
. Screenwriter Tania Rose was also contacted by the Special Edition team and after viewing the footage gave her endorsement to the project. Because of the quality of the missing scenes, the lack of a large budget for a film restoration, and a lack of interest at the time by restoration experts, it was decided that a digital tape reconstruction for presentation on Laserdisc would at least be a venue for film fans to finally see the footage. Years later, the improved quality of DVD would make the poor quality of the restored footage more jarring, so the standard edited version is presented instead. The special edition version has aired on Turner Classic Movies
(TCM). Comparisons between the two show that the extended version is of inferior video quality to that of the DVD, since film transfer techniques and formats have improved.
Currently, the best existing footage is in the form of original 70 mm elements of the general release version (recent restored versions shown in revival screenings are derived from these elements). However, some if not all of the remaining footage does exist in some form, although it has deteriorated over time. A restoration effort currently is under way by preservationist Robert A. Harris
in an attempt to bring the film back as close as possible to the original roadshow release.
The official release from MGM is the 161-minute general release version, taken from its original 35 mm 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. Two versions of the film have been released 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. It should be noted that the 2001 release had a blue spine and is now hard to find, while the 2003 release had a yellow spine and is relatively easy to find in stores. Interestingly, the colors in the cartoon credits sequence are incorrect (too red) in the current DVD version. The older Special Edition Laserdisc version is surprisingly more accurate, with the green background in the opening, and the subtle color changes occurring later on. The Special Edition team (consisting of volunteer "Mad World" experts from around the country) had MGM/UA pull a 70mm print for the correct colors.
Fans on message boards such as us.imdb.com have listed the differences between the TCM and DVD versions, since the DVD's deleted scenes are not properly organized to explain their context and some scenes are essentially the same as seen on the DVD, only extended with a bit of material. However, even without the deleted scenes the current DVD version contains what general audiences saw in 1963.
According to one fan's analysis of the TCM extended version (70mm 2.55:1 aspect ratio) and the DVD theatrical version (35mm 2.35:1 aspect ratio):
It has been rumored that Kramer's original cut lasted more than five hours. This has been verified by Kramer's widow, Karen Sharpe Kramer, who was involved in locating the original 192-minute premiere version for release on VHS.
The film was broadcast in high definition for the first time on April 1, 2010 on MGM HD. This version contained the full overture and exit music, but no intermission music (it only used the music leading into the intermission).
The film was shown on TCM & TCMHD on July 6, 2010. This version contained the full overture, intermission music, and exit music.
and LaserDisc
by CBS/FOX Video
in 1985 at the 154-minute running time. In 1990, MGM/UA Home Video released a restored video version of the film on VHS
and LaserDisc
incorporating all 20 minutes of the deleted footage that was available at that time, and including a documentary about the making of the film. The same company again released the movie on VHS
five years later in stereo, letterbox, with a running time of 182 minutes (which includes the 20 minutes of extra footage, the opening, intermission and exit music), bonus trailer, but without the documentary. In 2001, MGM Home Entertainment
released the film on two-sided DVD
with the deleted scenes included as extras. In 2003, MGM Home Entertainment released another DVD of the film, a one-sided disc containing no extras. On July 5, 2011, a Blu-ray
was released as a Walmart exclusive with a feature running time of 159 minutes. The special features include the Something a Little Less Serious documentary, extended scenes
, theatrical trailer and reissue trailer.
. (The original Cinerama process filmed scenes with three separate cameras. The three processed reels were projected by three electronically synchronized projectors onto a huge curved screen.) One camera Cinerama could be Super Panavision or Ultra Panavision, which was essentially the Super Panavision process with anamorphic compression at the edges of the image to give a much wider aspect ratio. When projected by one projector, the expanded 70mm image filled the wide Cinerama screen. Ultra Panavision was used to film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World; other films shot in Ultra Panavision and released in Cinerama include scenes of How The West Was Won
, Battle of the Bulge
and Khartoum
. Super Panavision films released in Cinerama include 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ice Station Zebra
.
: the film begins with mention of Spencer Tracy, then the 'in alphabetical order' mention of nine of the supporting cast (Berle, Caesar, Hackett, Merman, Rooney, Shawn, Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Winters), followed by hands switching these nine names two to three times over. Animation continues with paper dolls and a windup toy world spinning with several men hanging on to it and finishing with a man opening a door to the globe and getting trampled by a mad crowd. One of the animators who helped with the sequence was future 'Peanuts' animator Bill Melendez
, whose name appeared in the aforementioned explosion of names.
in Hollywood, California on November 7, 1963, on the Dome's own opening night. The East Coast premiere was on November 17, 1963, at the Warner Cinerama Theatre in Times Square, New York City. The day before, the film was shown in a special charity preview to benefit the Kennedy Child Study Center and the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Institute. JFK sent his brother Bobby to the East Coast premiere instead of attending with his wife Jacqueline and would be assassinated less than a week later in Dallas.
(also starring Tracy and also written by William Rose) and The Secret of Santa Vittoria
(also scored by Gold and also co-written by William Rose).
nominations for Best Picture (Comedy) and for Jonathan Winters' performance as Best Actor.
.
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
produced and directed by Stanley Kramer
Stanley Kramer
Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer. Kramer was responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies...
about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers. The ensemble
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
comedy premiered on November 7, 1963.
Plot
"Smiler" Grogan (Jimmy DuranteJimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
), suspect in a tuna factory robbery 15 years before and on the run from the police, recklessly passes a number of vehicles on a twisting, mountainous road in the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
of Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
before careening his car off a cliff and crashing. Five motorists from four of the passed vehicles stop to assist: Melville Crump (Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
), a dentist; Lennie Pike (Jonathan Winters
Jonathan Winters
-Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...
), a furniture mover; Dingy Bell (Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
) and Benjy Benjamin (Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett was an American comedian and actor.-Early life:Hackett was born in Brooklyn, New York, New York, the son of a Jewish upholsterer. He grew up on 54th and 14th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn, across from Public School 103...
), two friends on their way to Las Vegas; and J. Russell Finch (Milton Berle
Milton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
), an entrepreneur. Just before he kicks the bucket
Kick the bucket
To kick the bucket is an English idiom that is defined as "to die" in the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue . It is considered a euphemistic, informal, or slang term. Its origin remains unclear, though there have been several theories.-Origin theories:...
(his foot literally hits a bucket as he dies), Grogan tells the Samaritans about $350,000 buried in Santa Rosita State Park near the Mexican border, under a "Big W". Initially, the motorists try to reason with one another on how to share the money, but when they can't agree on any one particular distribution, it soon becomes an all-out race to get to the loot first.
Meanwhile, Captain T. G. Culpepper (Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
) of the Santa Rosita Police Department has been patiently working on the Grogan case for 15 years, hoping to someday solve it and retire with honor. Learning of the fatal crash, he suspects that "Smiler" might have given one or more of the witnesses a clue to the stolen loot's location and has police units track their movements.
Everyone experiences multiple setbacks en route to the money. Crump and his wife Monica (Edie Adams
Edie Adams
Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
) charter a shabby World War I-era biplane to Santa Rosita but get stuck in the basement of a hardware store there. They wreck the place in various failed escape attempts before blasting a hole in the wall with dynamite.
Dingy and Benjy convince pilot Tyler Fitzgerald (Jim Backus
Jim Backus
James Gilmore "Jim" Backus was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr...
) to shuttle them to Santa Rosita in his modern twin-engine aircraft. Fitzgerald carelessly lets them operate the controls while he makes drinks in the back of the plane. He is soon knocked unconscious, and the confused pair have to fly and land the plane on their own.
On the ground, two cab drivers, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Peter Falk
Peter Falk
Peter Michael Falk was an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo...
, who respectively whisk Dingy and Benjy away from the airport, and Crump and Monica from the hardware store, also get in on the hunt.
Pike's furniture truck crashes into the car containing Finch, his wife Emmeline (Dorothy Provine
Dorothy Provine
Dorothy Michelle Provine was an American singer, dancer, actress, and comedienne.-Career:Provine was born in Deadwood, South Dakota, to Virgil and Kathleen Provine. She attended the University of Washington, where she majored in drama. In Washington she handed out prizes for a local television...
), and his overbearing dictatorial mother-in-law, Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
). The three persuade Pike to ride off for help on a bicycle, then flag down British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
army Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne (Terry-Thomas
Terry-Thomas
Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens was a distinctive English comic actor, known as Terry-Thomas. He was famous for his portrayal of disreputable members of the upper classes, especially cads and toffs, with the trademark gap in his front teeth, cigarette holder, smoking jacket, and catch-phrases such as...
), to get them to Santa Rosita and ignore Pike on the roadside nearby. After many arguments, most caused by Mrs. Marcus, she and Emmeline refuse to go any farther, and Finch and Hawthorne leave them behind.
Pike tries to get motorist Otto Meyer (Phil Silvers
Phil Silvers
Phil Silvers was an American entertainer and comedy actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah." He is best known for starring in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S...
) to take him to Santa Rosita but foolishly tells him about the scheme, prompting the greedy Meyer to race for the money himself. Pike, outraged, destroys a service station at which Meyer has been forced to stop due to a tire blowout. After the rampage, Pike steals the station's tow truck and later picks up Mrs. Marcus and Emmeline. Mrs. Marcus calls her beach bum son Sylvester (Dick Shawn
Dick Shawn
Dick Shawn was an American actor and comedian.-Early life and career:Shawn was born as Richard Schulefand in Buffalo, New York. He played Sylvester Marcus, son of Mrs. Marcus , in Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Lorenzo St...
), who lives near Santa Rosita, to look for the loot, but the Oedipally-obsessed Sylvester races hysterically to the defense of his mother instead. Meyer experiences his own setbacks, including losing his car in a river. All the while, the police secretly track their activities while Culpepper bides his time.
Eventually, all of the interlopers arrive at the state park and begin searching for the "Big W", overseen by Captain Culpepper, disgruntled at being promised a too-small pension and secretly intent on keeping all of the loot for himself. He orders all policemen to leave the area and waits for the others to retrieve the money. Emmeline, the only one who wanted no part of the scheme, is the first to recognize the "Big W" - four large palm trees standing at odd angles. As the watching Culpepper steps out of the bushes and greets her, she unwittingly reveals the location to him and suggests they split the money. Soon Pike and the others notice the palm trees as well and frantically begin digging beneath them, while Culpepper quietly mixes in with the non-diggers. After a suitcase containing the loot is dug up and opened, the group argues about the money's distribution. Culpepper then identifies himself, takes the suitcase, and suggests to the stunned ensemble that they turn themselves in, stating that a jury might be more lenient if they do. Initially taking Culpepper's advice, the defeated claimants climb into the two taxis and drive out of the park.
But when the two taxicab groups notice Culpepper heading away from Santa Rosita with the money, they immediately reverse direction and follow him, foiling his plan to hop a boat bound for Mexico. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to reach Culpepper by radio, the police department realizes what he is doing and revokes his newly-trebled pension — secured for him by Police Chief Aloysius' (William Demarest
William Demarest
Carl William Demarest was an American character actor. He frequently played crusty but good-hearted roles.-Early life and career:...
) arm twisting — and orders Culpepper's arrest.
At the end of the chase, all eleven men in the group are stranded high up on an abandoned building. While trying to keep from falling off the building's disintegrating fire escape, the men lose control of the suitcase containing the money, and all $350,000 flutters down to the astonished crowd watching below, who quickly gather it up. The men then simultaneously attempt to climb down an extended fire truck ladder, but their combined weight makes the firemen lose control of the ladder, which gyrates wildly, flinging them off in various directions.
The dejected men, now immobile in a prison hospital in bandages and casts, blame one another for their predicament as well as criticizing Culpepper for seizing the money. Replying that their sentences likely will be lighter because he will probably take most of the blame in court, ex-Captain Culpepper adds that perhaps in ten or twenty years, there will be something about all this he can laugh about. A sympathetic Benjy throws a banana peel on the floor as the nagging Mrs. Marcus (flanked by Monica and Emmeline) enters, scolding all of the hospitalized men for everything. When Mrs. Marcus promptly slips on the banana peel and is carried off on a gurney, all the injured men, including Culpepper, begin to laugh hysterically.
Cast
Main- Spencer TracySpencer TracySpencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
as Captain T. G. Culpepper, Santa Rosita Police Department - Milton BerleMilton BerleMilton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
as edible seaweed company owner J. Russell Finch - Sid CaesarSid CaesarIsaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
as dentist Melville Crump - Edie AdamsEdie AdamsEdie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
as Crump's wife, Monica - Ethel MermanEthel MermanEthel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
as Mrs. Marcus, mother-in-law of J. Russell Finch, mother of Emmeline and Sylvester - Jonathan WintersJonathan Winters-Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...
as trucker Lennie Pike - Mickey RooneyMickey RooneyMickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
as comedy writer Dingy Bell - Buddy HackettBuddy HackettBuddy Hackett was an American comedian and actor.-Early life:Hackett was born in Brooklyn, New York, New York, the son of a Jewish upholsterer. He grew up on 54th and 14th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn, across from Public School 103...
as comedy writer Benjy Benjamin - Phil SilversPhil SilversPhil Silvers was an American entertainer and comedy actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah." He is best known for starring in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S...
as out-of-work piano player Otto Meyer - Dorothy ProvineDorothy ProvineDorothy Michelle Provine was an American singer, dancer, actress, and comedienne.-Career:Provine was born in Deadwood, South Dakota, to Virgil and Kathleen Provine. She attended the University of Washington, where she majored in drama. In Washington she handed out prizes for a local television...
as Emmeline Marcus-Finch, wife of J. Russell Finch - Dick ShawnDick ShawnDick Shawn was an American actor and comedian.-Early life and career:Shawn was born as Richard Schulefand in Buffalo, New York. He played Sylvester Marcus, son of Mrs. Marcus , in Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Lorenzo St...
as Sylvester Marcus, a lifeguard, Mrs. Marcus' son, Emmeline's brother - Terry-ThomasTerry-ThomasThomas Terry Hoar Stevens was a distinctive English comic actor, known as Terry-Thomas. He was famous for his portrayal of disreputable members of the upper classes, especially cads and toffs, with the trademark gap in his front teeth, cigarette holder, smoking jacket, and catch-phrases such as...
as Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne
Secondary
- Jim BackusJim BackusJames Gilmore "Jim" Backus was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr...
as boozy and rich airplane owner Tyler Fitzgerald - William DemarestWilliam DemarestCarl William Demarest was an American character actor. He frequently played crusty but good-hearted roles.-Early life and career:...
as Aloysius, Chief of the Santa Rosita Police Department - Jimmy DuranteJimmy DuranteJames Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
as "Smiler" Grogan - Peter FalkPeter FalkPeter Michael Falk was an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo...
as a cop-hating cab driver - Eddie 'Rochester' AndersonEddie Anderson (comedian)Edmund Lincoln Anderson , also known as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, was an American comedian and actor. His most famous role was that of Rochester van Jones, valet of Jack Benny, on his radio and television shows.-Early life:Anderson was born in Oakland, California...
as a cab driver - Paul Ford as Col. Wilberforce
- Barrie Chase as Sylvester Marcus' bikini-wearing girlfriend, Mrs. Haliburton
Cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
s
- Jack BennyJack BennyJack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
as a man who drives by in a MaxwellMaxwell automobileThe Maxwell was a brand of automobiles manufactured in the United States of America from about 1904 to 1925. The present-day successor to the Maxwell company is Chrysler Group.-History:...
, offering to help, but is put off by Mrs. Marcus - Paul BirchPaul Birch (actor)Paul Birch was an American actor of stage and film.Birch was born Paul Smith in Atmore, Alabama. He was a veteran of 39 movies, 50 stage dramas and a number of television shows including the Hallmark Hall of Fame...
as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer - Ben BlueBen BlueBen Blue , born Benjamin Bernstein, was a Canadian-American actor and comedian.Born to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, at the age of nine, Blue emigrated to Baltimore in the United States where he won a contest for the best impersonation of Charlie Chaplin...
as the vintage biplane pilot - Joe E. BrownJoe E. Brown (comedian)Joseph Evans Brown was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. In 1902 at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville...
as the union official giving a speech at a construction site - Alan CarneyAlan CarneyAlan Carney was an American actor and comedian.Alan Carney was born David Boughal in Brooklyn, New York. He had performed in vaudeville for years as a comic dialectican. After making his first film, 1941's Convoy, Carney signed a contract at RKO Pictures, in choice supporting roles in such films...
as a sergeant with the Santa Rosita Police Department - Chick Chandler as detective outside Chinese laundry
- John ClarkeJohn Clarke (actor)John Clarke is an American actor.John Clark was the first actor to play Mickey Horton on the American soap opera Days of our Lives, starring on the show from its debut in 1965 until he retired early in 2004 due to health concerns. He was replaced in the role by John Ingle, who left in 2006...
as helicopter pilot - Stanley ClementsStanley ClementsStanley Clements was an American actor and comedian.Stanley Clements was born Stanislaw Klimowicz in Long Island, New York. Young Stan realized that he wanted a show-business career while he was in grammar school, and when he graduated from college he toured in vaudeville for two years...
as a local reporter at police station - Lloyd CorriganLloyd CorriganLloyd Corrigan was an American film actor, producer, screenwriter and director who began working in films in the 1920s...
as the mayor of Santa Rosita - Howard Da SilvaHoward Da SilvaHoward Da Silva was an American actor.-Early life:He was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Benjamin and Bertha Silverblatt. His parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. He had a job as a steelworker before beginning his acting career on the stage...
as an airport official - Andy DevineAndy DevineAndrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...
as the Sheriff of Crockett County, California (fictional) - Selma DiamondSelma DiamondSelma Diamond was a Canadian-born American comic actress and radio and television writer, and is known for her high-range, raspy voice and her portrayal of Selma Hacker on the first two seasons of the NBC television comedy series Night Court.-Life and career:Diamond was born in Montreal, Quebec,...
(voice only) as Ginger Culpepper, Captain Culpepper's wife - Minta DurfeeMinta DurfeeAraminta Estelle "Minta" Durfee was an American silent film actress from Los Angeles, California, possibly best known for her role in Mickey .-Biography:...
as a crowd extra - Roy EngelRoy EngelRoy Engel was an American television and film actor. Engel was born in New York, New York, United States.-Career:...
as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer - Norman FellNorman FellNorman Fell , born Norman Noah Feld, was an American actor of film and television, most famous for his role as landlord Mr. Roper on the sitcom Three's Company and its spin-off, The Ropers.-Early life:...
as primary detective at the "Smiler" Grogan accident site - James FlavinJames FlavinJames William Flavin, Jr. was an American character actor whose career lasted nearly half a century.-Life and career:...
as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer - Stan FrebergStan FrebergStanley Victor "Stan" Freberg is an American author, recording artist, animation voice actor, comedian, radio personality, puppeteer, and advertising creative director whose career began in 1944...
as a Crockett County Deputy Sheriff - Nicholas GeorgiadeNicholas GeorgiadeNicholas Georgiade is an American actor of television and film.He is a veteran of 37 movies and television programs. His television career began on the December 11, 1958 Playhouse 90 episode titled Seven Against the Wall with Warren Oates, Tige Andrews, and Paul Lambert...
as supporting detective at the "Smiler" Grogan accident site - Louise Glenn (voice only) as Billie Sue Culpepper, Captain Culpepper's daughter
- Leo GorceyLeo GorceyLeo Bernard Gorcey was an American stage and movie actor who became famous for portraying on film the leader of the group of young hooligans known variously as the Dead End Kids, The East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys. Always the most pugnacious member of the gangs he participated in, young Leo...
as a cab driver bringing Crump and Monica to the hardware store - Stacy HarrisStacy Harris (actor)Stacy Harris was an American actor with hundreds of film and television appearances.Harris was best known for his role as agent Jim Taylor on ABC Radio's This is Your FBI and, later, for playing varied characters, often villains, on shows produced by Jack Webb's Mark VII Limited, such as Dragnet,...
(voice only) as police radio voice unit F-7 - Don C. HarveyDon C. HarveyDon C. Harvey was an American television and film actor. Harvey was born in Kansas, United States.-Career:Harvey appeared in 180 films and television programs between 1945 and 1963....
as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer - Sterling HollowaySterling HollowaySterling Price Holloway, Jr. was an American character actor who appeared in 150 films and television programs. He was also a voice actor for The Walt Disney Company...
as a Santa Rosita Fire Department fire captain - Edward Everett HortonEdward Everett HortonEdward Everett Horton was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella...
as Mr. Dinckler, owner of the hardware store - Allen JenkinsAllen JenkinsAllen Jenkins was an American character actor of stage, screen and television.-Early life:He was born David Allen Curtis Jenkins in Staten Island, New York on April 9, 1900.-Career:...
as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer - Marvin KaplanMarvin KaplanMarvin Kaplan is an American character actor and voice artist. Kaplan is probably best known for his recurring role on the sitcom Alice where he portrayed a phone company employee named Henry Beesmeyer who frequented Mel's diner. He was a part of the cast from 1977 to the series end in 1985...
as garage/service station co-owner Irwin - Robert KarnesRobert KarnesRobert A. Karnes was a prolific television actor who also appeared in some films early in his career, including mostly uncredited parts in The Best Years of Our Lives , Miracle on 34th Street , Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye , and From Here to Eternity...
as Simmy, a Santa Rosita Police Department officer - Buster KeatonBuster KeatonJoseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
as Jimmy the Crook (boatman) - Tom KennedyTom Kennedy (American actor)Tom Kennedy was an American actor best known for his roles in Hollywood comedies from the silent days, with such producers as Mack Sennett and Hal Roach, mainly supporting lead comedians such as the four Marx Brothers, WC Fields, Mabel Normand, Shemp Howard and Laurel and Hardy.-Career:For over 50...
as a Santa Rosita Police Department traffic cop - Don KnottsDon KnottsJesse Donald "Don" Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards...
as the nervous motorist - Charles LaneCharles Lane (actor)Charles Gerstle Levison , better known as Charles Lane, was an American character actor seen in many movies and TV shows, and at the time of his death may have been the oldest living professional American actor. Lane appeared in many Frank Capra films, including You Can't Take It With You , Mr...
as the airport manager - Harry LauterHarry LauterHerman Arthur "Harry" Lauter was an American character actor originally from White Plains, New York....
as a police dispatcher - Ben LessyBen LessyBen Lessy was an American television and film actor. He was born in New York, New York, United States.-Career:Lessy appeared in 32 films and television programs between 1951 and 1981...
as George the steward - Bobo LewisBobo LewisBarbara "Bobo" Lewis was an American comedic actress of film, musical theatre, stage and television.-Stage roles:...
as vintage biplane pilot's wife - Jerry LewisJerry LewisJerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
as the man who runs over Culpepper's hat - Bob Mazurki (presumed) as Eddie, the miner's son
- Mike MazurkiMike MazurkiMike Mazurki was an Austrian-born American actor and professional wrestler who appeared in over 100 movies. His towering 6' 5" presence and intimidating face usually got him roles playing tough guys, thugs, strong men, and gangsters.Mazurki was born as Mikhail Mazurkevych in Tarnopol, Galicia,...
as the miner bringing medicine to his wife - Charles McGrawCharles McGrawCharles Butters , best known by his stage name Charles McGraw, was an American actor, who made his first film in 1942, albeit in a small, uncredited role. He was born in Des Moines, Iowa.-Career:...
as Lt. Matthews - Cliff NortonCliff NortonClifford Charles "Cliff" Norton was an American character actor and radio announcer who had appeared in various movies and television series over a career that spanned over 40 years. He was probably best known as the announcer for Dave Garroway's radio program...
as a reporter - Barbara Pepper as a crowd extra
- ZaSu PittsZaSu PittsZaSu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.-Early life:ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie Pitts; she was the third of four children...
as Gertie, the Santa Rosita Police Department Central Division's switchboard operator - Carl ReinerCarl ReinerCarl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
as the Rancho Conejo airport tower controller - Madlyn RhueMadlyn RhueMadlyn Soloman Rhue was an American character actress.Rhue was born in Washington, D.C. From the 1950s to the 1990s, Rhue appeared in some twenty films, including Operation Petticoat and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World...
as police secretary Schwartz - Roy RobertsRoy RobertsRoy Roberts was an American character actor. Over his more than 40-year career, he appeared in more than nine hundred productions on stage and screen.-Biography:...
as a Santa Rosita Police Department officer - Eddie RyderEddie RyderEddie Ryder was an American television and film actor as well as writer, and television director. Ryder was born in New York City, New York, United States.-Career:He was a veteran of 92 movies and television programs...
as Rancho Conejo air traffic control tower staff member - Charles Sherlock as a crowd extra
- The ShirellesThe ShirellesThe Shirelles were an African-American girl group that achieved popularity in the early 1960s. They consisted of schoolmates Shirley Owens , Doris Coley , Addie "Micki" Harris , and Beverly Lee...
(voice), singing "31 Flavors", at Sylvester's bachelor pad - Eddie Smith as an extra
- Arnold StangArnold StangArnold Stang was an American comic actor who played a small and bespectacled, yet brash and knowing big-city type.-Career:...
as garage/service station co-owner Ray - Nick StewartNick StewartNick Stewart was an American television and film actor. Stewart was best known for his role as Lightnin' on the Amos and Andy television series.-Acting Career:...
as migrant truck driver forced off the road - The Three Stooges (MoeMoe HowardMoses Harry Horwitz , known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades...
, LarryLarry FineLouis Feinberg , known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American comedian and actor, who is best known as a member of the comedy act The Three Stooges.-Early life:...
, and Curly JoeCurly Joe DeRitaJoe DeRita , born Joseph Wardell, was an American comedian who is best known as Curly-Joe DeRita, the "sixth" member of the Three Stooges.-Early life:...
) as Rancho Conejo Airport firemen (they have the shortest cameo appearance; five seconds) - Sammee TongSammee TongSammee Tong was an American film and television character actor.He appeared in more than thirty films and some forty television programs between 1935 and 1965. He first appeared in an uncredited role as a waiter in Charlie Chan in Shanghai , and later as Cheela, the houseboy, in Think Fast, Mr....
as a laundryman - Doodles WeaverDoodles WeaverWinstead Sheffield Weaver , who used the professional name Doodles Weaver, was an American actor and comedian on radio, recordings, and television. He was the brother of NBC executive Sylvester "Pat" Weaver and the uncle of actress Sigourney Weaver.Born in Los Angeles, Weaver was given the nickname...
as a hardware store employee - Jesse WhiteJesse White (actor)Jesse White was an American television, film, and stage character actor. He is best remembered for portraying the Maytag repairman in television commercials, a role he played from 1967 to 1988.-Life and career:...
as a Rancho Conejo air traffic controller
See for names and pictures of many of the cast members. The film's opening credits list forty-eight names clearly: all of the 'main' and 'secondary' names above and twenty-nine of the 'cameo appearances', each group approximately or exactly in alphabetical order, though not grouped according to the 'main', 'secondary', 'cameo appearances' groups above. An 'explosion' displays other names not in any of the three lists, including Ade Woolely, Irene Wyman, Bernard Halderson, Bernards Kids, Mary Mathews, Carl Pederson, Oscar Hansson's, Federal Internal Revenue, Francis A. Smith, Bernie Gruver, Carl Person, Danny Smith, Kennedy's, Torty Maumau, Mad Mad Dog Gees, Los Angeles, Elenor Faith, Mary Cane, Ed Levit Artist, Colonal Rhe, Understable, Yorty, McKinley, Tab Collar, Art Goodman, Hugh Childs, Bob Carlson, Bill Melendez (see below), and a smattering of letters and otherwise unassociated names, all of which drop out to show five (Stang, Stewart, Stooges, Tong, White) of the twenty-nine. Right after the 'explosion', the last 'secondary' cast member mentioned is Durante.
Film and television comedian Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs was a Hungarian American comedian and actor.Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident...
was originally scheduled to play the character "Melville Crump" before his untimely death in an automobile accident on January 13, 1962. Kramer subsequently filled the role with comedian Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
. Kovacs' wife, Edie Adams
Edie Adams
Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
, remained on board as Caesar's screen wife, in part due to the enormous tax obligations that Ernie left behind.
Of the film's many actors and actresses, as of November 2011, only Caesar, Chase, Clarke, Freberg, Georgiade, Glenn, Kaplan, Lewis, Bob Mazurki (youngest), Reiner, Rooney (oldest), and Winters were believed to be still alive, evident from the cast members' biographies and other available information. Kennedy (1885) and Horton (1886) were born the earliest, while (excluding Bob Mazurki (1952)) Rhue (1935) and Provine (1935) were born the latest. Harvey died the youngest (51) and earliest (1963), and, to date, Falk died the latest (2011), Lane died the oldest (102). Tracy died more than eight years before Ford, the second of the main or secondary cast members to die. Wally Brown
Wally Brown
Wally Brown was an actor, comedian, and long-time partner of Alan Carney.- Biography :Wally was born in Malden, Massachusetts and served as a vaudevillian. In 1942, he began his film career in Hollywood at RKO Radio Pictures with the film Petticoat Larceny...
was going to be given a role but died not long before filming began.
Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
, Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
, George Burns
George Burns
George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason is an American stand-up comedian and movie actor.-Early life:Born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City....
, Don Rickles
Don Rickles
Donald Jay "Don" Rickles is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is best known as an insult comic....
, Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...
, and Red Skelton
Red Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
were among the many celebrities offered or considered for roles in the film. Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
's role was originally written for Groucho (as Finch's father-in-law), who reportedly demanded too much money; so the part was rewritten. Laurel did not want to be seen in his old age, especially without Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
, who died in 1957.
Background
In the early 1960s, screenwriter William RoseWilliam Rose (screenwriter)
William Rose was an American screenwriter of British and Hollywood films.Although born in Jefferson City, Missouri, after the 1939 outbreak of World War II, Rose lived in Canada and volunteered to fight overseas with the Black Watch...
, then living in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, conceived the idea for a film (provisionally titled Something a Little Less Serious) about a comedic chase through Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. He sent an outline to Kramer, who agreed to produce and direct the film. (The setting was subsequently shifted to America and the working title changed to One Damn Thing After Another and then It's a Mad World, with Rose and Kramer adding additional Mads to the title as time progressed.)
Although well known for serious films such as Inherit the Wind
Inherit the Wind (1960 film)
Inherit the Wind is a 1960 Hollywood film adaptation of the play of the same name, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, directed by Stanley Kramer....
and Judgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg is a 1961 American drama film dealing with the Holocaust and the Post-World War II Nuremberg Trials. It was written by Abby Mann, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starred Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy...
(both starring Tracy), Kramer set out to make the ultimate comedy film. Filmed in Ultra Panavision 70
Ultra Panavision 70
Ultra Panavision 70 and MGM Camera 65 were the photographic marketing brands — ca. 1957 to 1966 — that identified movies photographed with Panavision-brand anamorphic lenses using a 65mm negative and 70mm release print...
and presented in Cinerama
Cinerama
Cinerama is the trademarked name for a widescreen process which works by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. It is also the trademarked name for the corporation which was formed to market it...
(becoming one of the first single-camera Cinerama features produced), Mad World also had an all-star cast, with dozens of major comedy stars from all eras of cinema appearing in the film.
The film followed a Hollywood trend in the 1960s of producing "epic" films as a way of wooing audiences away from television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and back to movie theaters. Box-office revenues were dropping, so the major studios experimented with a number of gimmicks to attract audiences, including widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
films.
The title was taken from Thomas Middleton's
Thomas Middleton
Thomas Middleton was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in...
1605 comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
A Mad World, My Masters
A Mad World, My Masters
A Mad World, My Masters is a Jacobean stage play written by Thomas Middleton, a comedy first performed around 1605 and first published in 1608....
. Kramer considered adding a fifth "mad" to the title before deciding that it would be redundant, but noted in interviews that he later regretted it.
The film's theme music was written by Ernest Gold with lyrics by Mack David
Mack David
Mack David was an American lyricist and songwriter, best known for his work in film and television, with a career spanning from the early 1940s through the early 1970s. Mack was credited with writing lyrics and/or music for over one thousand songs...
. In the 1970s, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
broadcast the film on New Year's Eve. The last reported showing of the film on major network television was on CBS on May 16, 1978.
Production
The four minute opening animated title sequence was created by Saul BassSaul Bass
Saul Bass was a Jewish-American graphic designer and filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences....
.
The opening live action scenes, where "Smiler" Grogan drives off the road, and subsequent scenes when the four vehicles briefly speed down the mountain before slowing down and stopping so that the drivers can talk, were filmed on the “Seven Steps” section (also known as "Seven-Level Hill") of the Palms-to-Pines Highway (California State Highway 74), a generally east-west route mostly south of, and west of, the city of Palm Desert, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The rocky point where Durante's car sails off into space, known by Mad World fans as "Smiler's Point," can easily be spotted today on Highway 74, minus the man-made, temporary ramp that helped the car go airborne.
Many of the scenes that take place on what look like lonely stretches of road were filmed in areas of Southern California that have since been developed in the decades following the movie's production. Culpepper predicts that the vehicles — generally going east — will head south (a right turn). Not so long after, in a desert highway scene, the four speeding vehicles travel (presumably) somewhat westbound down a slight incline to a "T" intersection and begin to make sweeping left turns (southbound) onto the cross street. The moving van driven by Winters cuts diagonally across a sandy patch of desert adjacent to an intersection. This stunt was performed at the southeast corner of Ramon Road and Bob Hope Drive (Rio del Sol Road at the time) in Palm Desert. The sandy, barren terrain that the moving van cuts across is now the paved and landscaped parking lot of the Agua Caliente Indian Resort & Casino
Agua Caliente Casino
The Agua Caliente Casino is an Indian-gaming facility in Rancho Mirage, California. It is run by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. The facility currently has over of gambling floor. The casino has completed a 16-story, hotel tower which opened on April 18, 2008...
.
During the scene immediately before the start of the mad dash for the $350,000 loot, Crump incorrectly calculates Bell's and Benjamin's share of the cash under his '25 total share plan' as $97,000 rather than $98,000 (7 shares x $14,000/share). Thus, when Crump's stated figures are added the sum is only $349,000.
In the scene where Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
encounters Berle's character and his group, the entire area, which was practically open desert in the film, is now a modern suburban neighborhood in Yucca Valley
Yucca Valley, California
Yucca Valley is an incorporated town located in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 20,700 at the 2010 census, up from 16,865 at the 2000 census...
. Likewise, the scene in which Caesar is momentarily blinded by an unfurled road map, which results in all four vehicles zig-zagging behind one another on a desolate desert road, was filmed as the cars traveled northbound on Rio del Sol Road in Palm Desert. This stretch of roadway is now populated with numerous residences, condominium complexes, and retail businesses and has been widened into a four-lane boulevard.
Many of the actors performed some of their own stunts, including some crashing falls by Caesar, physical antics by Winters, and Silvers' drive into a flowing Kern River
Kern River
The Kern River is a river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield. Fed by snowmelt near Mount Whitney, the river passes through scenic canyons in the mountains and is a popular destination for...
, where he almost drowned. Caesar severely injured his back while filming the hardware store scene and was unable to return to the film for some time. Winters had been left tied to a chair while the rest of the cast went to lunch, and when the cast returned an hour later, Winters said, "When I get out of this chair, gang, you [meaning Kaplan and Stang] belong to me" and gave the two a lecture on forced potty training. Silvers injured himself shortly before the shooting of the scene in which the men chase Tracy up several flights of stairs and onto a fire-escape, so Silvers' stunt double stood in for him.
The gas station scenes with Marvin Kaplan
Marvin Kaplan
Marvin Kaplan is an American character actor and voice artist. Kaplan is probably best known for his recurring role on the sitcom Alice where he portrayed a phone company employee named Henry Beesmeyer who frequented Mel's diner. He was a part of the cast from 1977 to the series end in 1985...
and Arnold Stang
Arnold Stang
Arnold Stang was an American comic actor who played a small and bespectacled, yet brash and knowing big-city type.-Career:...
, first with Berle, Merman, Provine, and Terry-Thomas, and later with Silvers and Winters, were filmed at a specially constructed set built on composer Jimmy Van Heusen's property near Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
. Van Heusen first saw the completed gas station on his Friday drive from Los Angeles out to his weekend retreat. He did not know the gas station was a film set, thinking instead that his business manager had leased a portion of his property for an actual service station. The destruction scene with Winters, Kaplan, and Stang was filmed that weekend, with the site cleanup scheduled for the next week (Stang filmed the entire scene nursing a broken wrist in a cast covered by a thick work glove). On Monday morning's return trip to Los Angeles, Van Heusen saw the destroyed gas station and thought something terrible had happened, fearing he might be sued by injured parties.
During shooting of the gas station's destruction, Winters, whose character was the one who toppled the water tower with a tow truck, asked to be the one who backed the truck into the tower. Though two of the tower's legs were rigged with hidden cables which were pulled from offscreen to make the tower fall away from the truck, Kramer overruled Winters, saying that he could not be certain in which direction the tower would fall and thus could not guarantee the actor's safety.
The airport terminal scenes were filmed at the now-defunct Rancho Conejo Airport in Newbury Park, California
Newbury Park, California
The community of Newbury Park, California is located in the western portion of the city of Thousand Oaks and Casa Conejo, an unincorporated area of southeastern Ventura County's Conejo Valley, which is also in the northwestern Greater Los Angeles Area...
, though the control tower shown was constructed only for filming. Other airplane sequences were filmed at the Sonoma County Airport north of Santa Rosa, California
Santa Rosa, California
Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma County, California, United States. The 2010 census reported a population of 167,815. Santa Rosa is the largest city in California's Wine Country and fifth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont and 26th...
; at the Palm Springs International Airport
Palm Springs International Airport
Palm Springs International Airport is a public airport located two miles east of the central business district of Palm Springs, California, serving the Inland Empire Metropolitan Area of Southern California. The airport covers and utilizes two runways...
; and in the skies above Thousand Oaks
Thousand Oaks, California
Thousand Oaks is a city in southeastern Ventura County, California, in the United States. It was named after the many oak trees that grace the area, and the city seal is adorned with an oak....
, Camarillo
Camarillo, California
Camarillo is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. The population was 65,201 at the 2010 census, up from 57,084 at the 2000 census. The Ventura Freeway Camarillo is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. The population was 65,201 at the 2010 census, up from 57,084 at...
, and Orange County
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
.
In the Orange County scene, stuntman Frank Tallman
Frank Tallman
Frank Gifford Tallman was a stunt pilot who worked in Hollywood during the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life:...
flew a Beech model C-18S
Beechcraft Model 18
The Beechcraft Model 18, or "Twin Beech", as it is better known, is a 6-11 seat, twin-engine, low-wing, conventional-gear aircraft that was manufactured by the Beech Aircraft Corporation of Wichita, Kansas...
through a highway billboard advertising Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
. A communications mix-up resulted in the use of linen graphic sheets on the sign rather than paper, as planned. Linen, much tougher than paper, damaged the plane on impact. Tallman managed to fly it back to the airstrip, discovering that the leading edges of the wings had been smashed all the way back to the wing spars. Tallman considered that incident the closest he ever came to dying on film. (Both Tallman and his business partner and fellow flier on Mad World, Paul Mantz
Paul Mantz
Albert Paul Mantz was a noted air racing pilot, movie stunt pilot and consultant from the late 1930s until his death in the mid-1960s. He gained fame on two stages: Hollywood and in air races.-Early years:...
, would eventually die in separate air crashes over a decade apart.)
In another scene, Tallman flew the plane through an airplane hangar at about 150 knots, with only 23 feet of clearance from wingtips to walls and only 15 feet from the top of the tail to the hangar ceiling. Known as the Butler Building, the hangar was built during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and is still in use today at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, next to the Pacific Coast Air Museum, in Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa, California
Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma County, California, United States. The 2010 census reported a population of 167,815. Santa Rosa is the largest city in California's Wine Country and fifth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont and 26th...
, California.
In the film, the airplane is shown crashing through an airport restaurant's plate glass window and stopping abruptly. Shot in an open hangar made to look like a restaurant, no special effects were used in this scene, which was filmed with the actors and plane (with real propellers destroying the window framework) in the same space at the same time. Careful viewing of this incredibly dangerous shot reveals an arresting cable that was tied to the tail of the airplane at just the right length to make the aircraft stop as it hit a curbing.
Part of the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
The Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital is a retirement community, with individual cottages, and a fully licensed, acute-care hospital, located at 23388 Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills, California...
retirement community, in Woodland Hills, is visible in the background of the scene where characters Lenny Pike and Mrs. Marcus (in the tow truck Pike stole from the service station he destroyed in his rampage) stop at an intersection (of present-day Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive is a street and road in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. It is named after Los Angeles pioneer civil engineer William Mulholland...
, Valley Circle Boulevard, Avenue San Luis, and Calabasas Road) before making a U-turn. Kramer died in the hospital of the retirement community in 2001. Anderson (1977), Durfee (1975), and Rhue (2003) also died there.
Although the fictional city of Santa Rosita was really shot in Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
; Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Rancho Palos Verdes is a city in Los Angeles County, California that was incorporated on September 7, 1973. The population was 41,643 at the 2010 census...
; San Pedro, California; and Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
; Santa Rosita's location on a map in the police station scenes was (supposedly) south of San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
, and north along the coast from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, hence Culpepper's attempt to flee there. In reality, San Diego's southern city limits border Mexico, and the southernmost "X" on the police station map would also be in San Diego, somewhere between the eastern part of Imperial Beach, California
Imperial Beach, California
Imperial Beach is a residential beach city in San Diego County, California, with a population of 26,324 at the 2010 census. The city is the most southern beach city in Southern California and the West Coast of the United States...
and the southern part of Chula Vista, California
Chula Vista, California
Chula Vista is the second largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area, the seventh largest city in Southern California, the fourteenth largest city in the State of California, and the seventy seventh largest city in the U.S....
.
The YMCA at Long Beach Boulevard at 6th Street in Long Beach stood in for the police station. In one shot near the YMCA, a sign for Cormier Chevrolet, southwest of the station, and Sears store signs, north of the station, appear. Neither the YMCA, nor Cormier Chevrolet, nor Sears currently exist in the area (Cormier Chevrolet relocated to its current site, several miles northwest of downtown Long Beach on the San Diego Freeway
Interstate 405 (California)
Interstate 405 is a major north–south Interstate Highway in Southern California. It is a bypass of Interstate 5, running along the western areas of the Greater Los Angeles Area from Irvine in the south to near San Fernando in the north...
, in 1965). However, a Sears store sign also appears above and several businesses away from the hardware store from which Crump and Monica exit, via a Chinese laundry. Combined with other information available from the film, the likely conclusions are that the police station is less than three blocks total from the hardware store and that the Sears store was split between nearby locations.
"Santa Rosita State Park" was actually a private estate locally known as "Portuguese Point" near Abalone Cove Shoreline Park, Rancho Palos Verdes
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Rancho Palos Verdes is a city in Los Angeles County, California that was incorporated on September 7, 1973. The population was 41,643 at the 2010 census...
. None of the "Big W" remains, the last palm having fallen in the 1990s-2000's, although in 2011 homeschooler Price Morgan and internet film maker James Rolfe separately found an angled palm tree stump on the location, which they believed may be the remains of the "Big W". This film location is off-limits to the general public, though the stump can easily be viewed by climbing a hill that is around 100 feet to the east of the house. This hill is gated to vehicles but the public is allowed. Through the years, the property has taken on a noticeable slant toward the ocean, due to the slow but ongoing Portuguese Bend
Portuguese Bend
The Portuguese Bend region is the largest area of natural vegetation remaining on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in Los Angeles County, California....
landslide.
The final chase scene actually started in Santa Monica
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
, most notably on Pacific Coast Highway
California State Route 1
State Route 1 , more often called Highway 1, is a state highway that runs along much of the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. It is famous for running along some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, leading to its designation as an All-American Road.Highway 1 does not run...
, at the California Incline. At the intersection, the cabs turned left, briefly heading east, then parked, while the police car turned right, heading west, on Pacific Coast Highway. The cabs chased the police car west to Malibu, past Corral Canyon Road and Solstice Canyon Road, nearly as far as Point Dume, to Puerco Canyon Road, down to and east along Malibu Road (although the shots supposedly along Malibu Road were actually filmed at the southern end of South Victoria Avenue in Oxnard, California
Oxnard, California
Oxnard is the 113th largest city in the United States, 19th largest city in California and largest city in Ventura County, California, by way of population. It is located at the western edge of the fertile Oxnard Plain, and is an important agricultural center, with its distinction as the...
). In reality, Puerco Canyon Road is east, not west, of Corral Canyon Road and Solstice Canyon Road and of Point Dume. The little that's left of the southern branch of Puerco Canyon Road still intersects with Malibu Road, but the part just to the west of Cher
Cher
Cher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
's residence that connected to Pacific Coast Highway is no longer accessible. The ensemble then traversed the path in the opposite direction and continued south to Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
, where the cars passed The Pike
The Pike
The Pike became a world famous Long Beach, California amusement zone in 1902 along the shoreline south of Ocean Boulevard with several independent arcades, food stands, gift shops, a variety of rides and a grand bath house...
amusement park with its wooden roller coaster, and traveled around the Rainbow Pier. The Arcade under Ocean Boulevard near Pine Avenue is also part of the scene. Near the end of the chase scene, in Long Beach, the vehicles turn by the no-longer-existing Farmers & Merchants Bank branch at or near Long Beach Boulevard and Anaheim Street and, not long after, head east on East 10th Street, turn south onto Long Beach Boulevard (against one-way traffic heading north, with the first cab running over a fire hydrant just outside Daigh's Garage, immediately south of Square Deal Radiator Service, all on the east side of the street), then turn west onto the 200 block of East 9th Street (identified by a street name sign, initially visible to the viewer's left). The abandoned building was on East Broadway in downtown Long Beach. The matte painting for the long shot of the plaza required 21 exposures for the composite, seven elements times three color separations.
The fire escape and ladder miniature used in the final chase sequence is on display at the Hollywood Museum in Hollywood. Also, the Santa Rosita Fire Department's ladder truck was a 1960's Seagrave Fire Apparatus
Seagrave Fire Apparatus
Seagrave Fire Apparatus LLC is a manufacturer of fire apparatus that specializes in pumper and rescue units, as well as aerial towers. In addition to manufacturing new equipment, they refurbish, repair and upgrade older Seagrave apparatus, including National Fire Protection Association updates to...
open-cab Mid-Mount Aerial Ladder. Portions of the life-size building and fire escape were constructed on the Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
back lot.
Many modern photos exist of the areas used for the filming.
Silvers, a compulsive gambler, had a running crap game
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...
going during the production. According to Something a Little Less Serious: A Tribute to 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World', a 1991 documentary included on the DVD version, Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
, who has a cameo appearance in the film, reportedly stopped by the set and left $500 poorer.
Veteran stuntman Carey Loftin
Carey Loftin
Carey Loftin was an American actor and stuntman. One of his most famous roles was as the truck driver in Steven Spielberg's Duel, although his face was never seen...
was also featured in the documentary, explaining some of the complexity as well as simplicity of stunts, such as the day he "kicked the bucket" as a stand-in for Durante.
Kaplan, Provine, and Falk all appeared in the similarly themed Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...
comedy The Great Race
The Great Race
The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn,...
two years later.
Versions
The film ran 210 minutes in its preview showing. Kramer cut the film to 192 minutes for the premiere release. During its roadshowRoadShow
RoadShow , formerly known as "資訊娛樂共同睇" [paraphrased as Integrated View of Information and Entertainment]) is the first "Multi-Media On Board" service on transit vehicles in the world. It was launched by Kowloon Motor Bus Company on 26 November 2000...
70mm
70 mm film
70mm film is a wide high-resolution film gauge, with higher resolution than standard 35mm motion picture film format. As used in camera, the film is wide. For projection, the original 65mm film is printed on film. The additional 5mm are for magnetic strips holding four of the six tracks of sound...
run, United Artists, seeing that it had a mammoth hit on its hands, cut the film to 161 minutes without Kramer's involvement in order to add an extra daily showing. The general release 35mm
35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
version runs 154 minutes, with overture and exit music excised. At the film's premiere, radio transmissions between the film's fictional police played in the theater lobby and rest rooms during the intermission. The police transmissions featured Detective Matthews (Charles McGraw) and the police personnel that follow the group. These three reports (each approx. one minute in length) may have added to the 210-minute length.
Some of the cut footage remains missing; 20 minutes of material was not found. MGM/UA also located a 20-minute 70 mm preview reel that contained a few scenes in their entirety. These two 70mm reels provided the extra scenes for the "Special Edition version with restored footage" project of 1991. No out-take footage was used, with the exception of a two-second wide shot of the Beechcraft aircraft, needed to bridge a highly sought-after bit of Buddy Hackett being doused with a bucket of water.
While not officially referring to it as a director's cut, Kramer helped oversee the re-incorporation of this missing footage into a 182-minute "special edition" video version for VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and Laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
. Screenwriter Tania Rose was also contacted by the Special Edition team and after viewing the footage gave her endorsement to the project. Because of the quality of the missing scenes, the lack of a large budget for a film restoration, and a lack of interest at the time by restoration experts, it was decided that a digital tape reconstruction for presentation on Laserdisc would at least be a venue for film fans to finally see the footage. Years later, the improved quality of DVD would make the poor quality of the restored footage more jarring, so the standard edited version is presented instead. The special edition version has aired on Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
(TCM). Comparisons between the two show that the extended version is of inferior video quality to that of the DVD, since film transfer techniques and formats have improved.
Currently, the best existing footage is in the form of original 70 mm elements of the general release version (recent restored versions shown in revival screenings are derived from these elements). However, some if not all of the remaining footage does exist in some form, although it has deteriorated over time. A restoration effort currently is under way by preservationist Robert A. Harris
Robert A. Harris
Robert A. Harris is a film historian and preservationist who specializes in restoring the large-format widescreen films of the 1950s. He has restored and reconstructed a number of classic films including Lawrence of Arabia , Spartacus , My Fair Lady , Vertigo Rear Window , as well as The...
in an attempt to bring the film back as close as possible to the original roadshow release.
The official release from MGM is the 161-minute general release version, taken from its original 35 mm 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. Two versions of the film have been released 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. It should be noted that the 2001 release had a blue spine and is now hard to find, while the 2003 release had a yellow spine and is relatively easy to find in stores. Interestingly, the colors in the cartoon credits sequence are incorrect (too red) in the current DVD version. The older Special Edition Laserdisc version is surprisingly more accurate, with the green background in the opening, and the subtle color changes occurring later on. The Special Edition team (consisting of volunteer "Mad World" experts from around the country) had MGM/UA pull a 70mm print for the correct colors.
Fans on message boards such as us.imdb.com have listed the differences between the TCM and DVD versions, since the DVD's deleted scenes are not properly organized to explain their context and some scenes are essentially the same as seen on the DVD, only extended with a bit of material. However, even without the deleted scenes the current DVD version contains what general audiences saw in 1963.
According to one fan's analysis of the TCM extended version (70mm 2.55:1 aspect ratio) and the DVD theatrical version (35mm 2.35:1 aspect ratio):
- The DVD does not contain the overture, and the main titles are in red, as opposed to the original multi-colored sequence.
- The TCM version opens with the 1980s animated MGM/UA logo, while the DVD version opens with the familiar MGM Leo the LionLeo the Lion (MGM)Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures, featured in the studio's production logo, which was created by the Paramount Studios art director Lionel S. Reiss....
logo (United Artists releases are now part of the MGM library). - Part One of the TCM extended version has 14 minutes and 2 seconds of added footage.
- Part Two of the TCM extended version has 3 minutes and 49 seconds of added footage.
- The longest stretch of time in the film without added material is 25 minutes and 3 seconds, from timecode 1:53:45 to timecode 2:18:48.
It has been rumored that Kramer's original cut lasted more than five hours. This has been verified by Kramer's widow, Karen Sharpe Kramer, who was involved in locating the original 192-minute premiere version for release on VHS.
The film was broadcast in high definition for the first time on April 1, 2010 on MGM HD. This version contained the full overture and exit music, but no intermission music (it only used the music leading into the intermission).
The film was shown on TCM & TCMHD on July 6, 2010. This version contained the full overture, intermission music, and exit music.
Home media
The film was first released on VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and LaserDisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
by CBS/FOX Video
CBS/Fox Video
CBS/Fox Video was a home video company formed and established in 1982, as a merger between 20th Century Fox Video, formerly Magnetic Video Corporation, and CBS Video Enterprises....
in 1985 at the 154-minute running time. In 1990, MGM/UA Home Video released a restored video version of the film on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and LaserDisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
incorporating all 20 minutes of the deleted footage that was available at that time, and including a documentary about the making of the film. The same company again released the movie on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
five years later in stereo, letterbox, with a running time of 182 minutes (which includes the 20 minutes of extra footage, the opening, intermission and exit music), bonus trailer, but without the documentary. In 2001, MGM Home Entertainment
MGM Home Entertainment
MGM Home Entertainment is the home video and DVD arm of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.-History:The home video division of MGM started in 1979 as MGM Home Video, releasing all the movies and TV shows by MGM. In 1980, MGM joined forces with CBS Video Enterprises, the home video division of the CBS television...
released the film on two-sided DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
with the deleted scenes included as extras. In 2003, MGM Home Entertainment released another DVD of the film, a one-sided disc containing no extras. On July 5, 2011, a Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
was released as a Walmart exclusive with a feature running time of 159 minutes. The special features include the Something a Little Less Serious documentary, extended scenes
Deleted scene
In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
, theatrical trailer and reissue trailer.
Widescreen process
The film was promoted as the first film made in "one-projector" CineramaCinerama
Cinerama is the trademarked name for a widescreen process which works by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. It is also the trademarked name for the corporation which was formed to market it...
. (The original Cinerama process filmed scenes with three separate cameras. The three processed reels were projected by three electronically synchronized projectors onto a huge curved screen.) One camera Cinerama could be Super Panavision or Ultra Panavision, which was essentially the Super Panavision process with anamorphic compression at the edges of the image to give a much wider aspect ratio. When projected by one projector, the expanded 70mm image filled the wide Cinerama screen. Ultra Panavision was used to film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World; other films shot in Ultra Panavision and released in Cinerama include scenes of How The West Was Won
How the West Was Won (film)
How the West Was Won is a 1962 American epic Western film. The picture was one of the last "old-fashioned" epic films made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to enjoy great success. It follows four generations of a family as they move ever westward, from western New York state to the Pacific Ocean...
, Battle of the Bulge
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive , launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name , and France and...
and Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...
. Super Panavision films released in Cinerama include 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ice Station Zebra
Ice Station Zebra
Ice Station Zebra is a 1963 thriller novel written by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. This was the last of MacLean's classic sequence of first person narratives which began with Night Without End, and represented a return to that earlier novel's Arctic setting...
.
Animated credit sequence
Kramer's comedy was accentuated by many things, including the animated credits that open the movie, designed by Saul BassSaul Bass
Saul Bass was a Jewish-American graphic designer and filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences....
: the film begins with mention of Spencer Tracy, then the 'in alphabetical order' mention of nine of the supporting cast (Berle, Caesar, Hackett, Merman, Rooney, Shawn, Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Winters), followed by hands switching these nine names two to three times over. Animation continues with paper dolls and a windup toy world spinning with several men hanging on to it and finishing with a man opening a door to the globe and getting trampled by a mad crowd. One of the animators who helped with the sequence was future 'Peanuts' animator Bill Melendez
Bill Melendez
José Cuauhtémoc "Bill" Meléndez was a Mexican-American character animator, film director, voice artist and producer, known for his cartoons for Warner Brothers, UPA and the Peanuts series...
, whose name appeared in the aforementioned explosion of names.
Premieres
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World had its world premiere at the Cinerama DomeCinerama Dome
Pacific Theatres' Cinerama Dome is a movie theater located at 6360 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Designed to present widescreen, 70mm Cinerama films, it opened November 7, 1963. Today it continues as a leading first run theater.- History :...
in Hollywood, California on November 7, 1963, on the Dome's own opening night. The East Coast premiere was on November 17, 1963, at the Warner Cinerama Theatre in Times Square, New York City. The day before, the film was shown in a special charity preview to benefit the Kennedy Child Study Center and the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Institute. JFK sent his brother Bobby to the East Coast premiere instead of attending with his wife Jacqueline and would be assassinated less than a week later in Dallas.
Response
Distinguished by the largest number of stars to appear in a film comedy, Mad World opened to acclaim from many critics and tremendous box office receipts, becoming the highest grossing American film of 1963, quickly establishing itself as one of the top 100 highest-grossing films of all time when adjusted for inflation. The film's great success inspired Kramer to direct and produce Guess Who's Coming to DinnerGuess Who's Coming to Dinner
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton...
(also starring Tracy and also written by William Rose) and The Secret of Santa Vittoria
The Secret of Santa Vittoria
The Secret of Santa Vittoria is a 1969 film made by Stanley Kramer Productions and distributed by United Artists. It was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer and co-produced by George Glass from a screenplay by Ben Maddow and William Rose. It was based on the novel by Robert Crichton...
(also scored by Gold and also co-written by William Rose).
Awards
The film won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing and received Oscar nominations for its cinematography, film editing, sound recording (Gordon E. Sawyer), music score and title song. and Golden Globe AwardGolden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
nominations for Best Picture (Comedy) and for Jonathan Winters' performance as Best Actor.
American Film Institute recognition
The film was recognized by the American Film InstituteAmerican Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
.
- 1998: AFI's 100 Years... 100 MoviesAFI's 100 Years... 100 MoviesThe first of the AFI 100 Years… series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry who chose from a list of 400 nominated movies...
- Nominated - 2000: AFI's 100 Years... 100 LaughsAFI's 100 Years... 100 LaughsPart of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Laughs is a list of the top 100 funniest movies in American cinema. A wide variety of comedies were nominated for the distinction that included slapstick comedy, screwball comedy, romantic comedy, satire, black comedy, musical comedy, comedy of...
- #40 - 2004: AFI's 100 Years... 100 SongsAFI's 100 Years... 100 SongsPart of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Songs is a list of the top 100 songs in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute June 22, 2004 in a CBS special hosted by John Travolta, who appeared in two films honored by the list, Saturday Night Fever and...
:- It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - Nominated
- 2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film ScoresAFI's 100 Years of Film ScoresPart of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores is a list of the top 25 film scores in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute in 2005.-The List:-External links:**...
- Nominated - 2007: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated
See also
- "Homer the VigilanteHomer the Vigilante"Homer the Vigilante" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons fifth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 6, 1994. In the episode, a crime wave caused by an elusive cat burglar hits Springfield. Lisa is distraught to find her saxophone has been stolen, and...
," a SimpsonsThe SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
episode that spoofs the film - DhamaalDhamaalDhamaal is a 2007 Hindi Caper film directed and produced by Indra Kumar and starring Riteish, Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Javed Jaffrey and Aashish Chaudhary....
, a 2007 Bollywood-remake of the film - Million Dollar MysteryMillion Dollar MysteryMillion Dollar Mystery is a 1987 American film released with a promotional tie-in for Glad-Lock brand bags. While performing a routine stunt for this film, legendary stuntman Dar Robinson lost his life on November 21, 1986...
, a comedy film with some similarities - Rat Race, a comedy film with a similar plot
- Scavenger HuntScavenger HuntScavenger Hunt is a 1979 comedy film with a large ensemble cast, in the mold of the 1963 comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.-Plot summary:...
- Three KingsThree Kings (2011 film)Three Kings is a 2011 Malayalam–language caper film directed by V. K. Prakash and starring Jayasurya, Indrajith, Kunchacko Boban, Sandhya, Ann Augustine and Samvrutha Sunil...
, an Indian film with a similar plot
External links
- Archived article documenting Robert Harris' attempt to restore It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
- Writer Mark Evanier discusses his favorite movie
- Widescreen Museum article on the film
- Road scenes from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
- Podcast focusing on the film's history, music and legacy
- Airport scenes from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
- World premiere newsreel footage
- Homeschooler Price Morgan's dubyacast episodes and interviews with Price's cousin Danny Lee on Mad World's special effects