The Great Race | | Cast : | Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood | | Director : | Blake Edwards | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby | | Released Date : | July 01, 1965 | | DVD Released Date : | June 04, 2002 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Japanese (Subtitled), Thai (Subtitled), Chinese (Subtitled), Korean (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | Unrated | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 05, 2005 | | Summary | A good time was had by all. | Content
 | This is one of those movies that is a joy to watch. Everybody involved was obviously enjoying themselve immensely. with the possible exception of Natalie Wood. So you should enjoy it too. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 28, 2005 | | Summary | Scene For Scene, One Of The Funniest Movies Ever Made | Content
| Blake Edwards' sprawling 1965 comedy takes the premise of "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and adds a twist to it. Though lacking the all star cast that that 1963 comedy had, "The Great Race" is every bit as funny and ranks up with "It's A Mad,Mad..." as one of the greatest slapstick comedies ever made.
Daredevil The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) is loved by all: talented, handsome and kind, he is the ideal man for many woman and his stunts have made him a millionaire. Everyone loves him. Well, almost every one. Enter Leslie's arch nemesis, Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon). Along with his not very smart henchman (to put it mildly) Max (Peter Falk), Professor Fate will stop at nothing to top Leslie and become him. However, every attempt goes hilariously wrong. But he then hatches a scheme that he knows won't fail. He will complete against Leslie in a 20, 000 mile race from New York to Paris and beat him, thus winning the respect of the world. Also competing is beautiful suffragette newspaper reporter Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood), who captures the eye of both Leslie and Fate. Everything culminates into a nonstop laugh riot, including the greatest pie fight in the history of entertainment.
"The Great Race" is a classic comedy that is guaranteed to make anyone laugh. I highly recommend it. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 11, 2005 | | Summary | Truly Great! | Content
| Whether you prefer comedy, romance, or just plain swashbuckling fun, "The Great Race" has it all. This film is one of the most enjoyable adventures I've ever had the pleasure to see.
Tony Curtis plays the famous Leslie --- The GREAT Leslie --- whose hair is always perfectly combed, whose clothes are always a pristine, unblemished white. He gets kissed by all the pretty ladies, and his teeth and eyes glint with the requisite *bling!* sound. His Houdini-style daredevil-dom has made him a famous man and his accomplishments make him formidable.
Enter the nemesis, Professor Fate (played by Jack Lemmon) --- a man who dresses in black, wears a sinister mustache...and whose schemes to outsmart The Great Leslie consistently fail.
When Leslie proposes a long race --- from New York to Paris --- Fate and his sticky sidekick Max gleefully enter, determined to beat Leslie at his own game.
Natalie Wood plays a determined sufragette eager to emancipate women from mental slavery --- "out of the kitchens, and off the pedestals!" She invades a newspaper office in order to secure a way of reporting the race from start to finish. Her own determined schemes get her entangled in the life of The Great Leslie in more ways than one!
And so, from New York to Paris, we follow our hero, heroine, and arch-enemy through many adventures, including a barroom brawl, a melting iceberg, a foreign prison, a duel with sabers, and the best pie fight in film history!
From the opening credits to the humorous ending, this film provides fun for anybody. Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood create good chemistry, Jack Lemmon is equally brilliant in BOTH his hilarious roles, and the supporting cast is fantastic. I highly recommend this film! You'll laugh your head off. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 30, 2005 | | Summary | One of the few 60's comedies that is still funny | Content
| As the other reviews say, The Great Race is simple, silly, fun -- evil plots that go disastrously wrong, a barroom brawl, even a pie fight. Hero all in white, villain all in black.
Unlike most 60's comedies, it wears well. I think it's really a parody of the tiresome "hey I'm funny" school of 60's comedies starring idiots like Buddy Hackett or Terry-Thomas. Jack Lemmon's villain is so (deliberately) overdone that it's a parody all by itself. The rest of the leads are primarily actors, not comedians or comic actors, and they get all the best laughs. This is not to say that Lemmon and Falk's riffs on Laurel & Hardy, or huge brawls, or melodramatic swordplay, or pie fights, aren't funny. But they aren't the soul of this movie.
Time has not been kind to 60's movie comedies. "Those Magnificent Men," "Mad, Mad, World," even "Cat Ballou" are tedious, almost embarrassing. "The Great Race" makes the short list of those that can still make us laugh. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 15, 2005 | | Summary | Not So Great | Content
| In theory I should have loved this Blake Edwards film. I'm a big fan of slapstick comedy. And I understand what type of movie Edwards was trying to make but "The Great Race" seems to be too many things at once. And that hurts it.
The first half hour or so of the film reminds me of the wilde coyotte/road runner cartoons. We see Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) try out his inventions just to see them one by one fail. The opening scenes are built around a single joke at the end. It's set-up punchline, set-up punchline, set-up punchline. And this goes on for a half hour. That's wasted film. They didn't have to show us the same thing over and over. We're smart, we get the picture. We understand who these characters are from the very beginning. Because we know what Edwards is doing. Tony Curtis (The Great Leslie) is the hero. How do we know? Because he wears white, women like him and when he smiles his teeth sparkle. Jack Lemmon is the villian. How do we know? Because he wears black and has a mustache. Remember all the villians in those 1920 comedies always had a mustache. So it's all very easy.
I going to let you in on a little secret, but you have to promise not to tell anyone. I'm actually not a big Blake Edwards fan. You may find this odd but I find that I enjoy his more serious films more. I think "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is a great film. I enjoy "Days of Wine & Roses", and I like "Victor\Victoria". This is a comedy I suppose but I always think of it more so as a musical. I never really had too much with his "Pink Panther" movies. I enjoyed the first two "A Shot in the Dark" and "The Pink Panther" but I think Edwards made too many sequels. He tried his hardest to cash in. I don't like "A Fine Mess" or "Switch" either. So I guess I'm not the right audience for this movie.
"The Great Race" starts off with a caption "For Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy" is those names mean nothing to you, you too are no the right audience for this movie. As I first started watching the movie I wonder how is this even related to Laurel & Hardy's comedy. Then I noticed Lemmon and Peter Falk (Lemmon's trusted sidekick Max) are Laurel & Hardy.
As I said "The Great Race" wants to be too many things at once. It wants to be a slapstick comedy\adventure\romance and I think if they had more time secretly it also wants to be a musical. Edwards has too much on his plate. The movie never quite sets a proper tone. And I have to admit, no matter how mad people get, I didn't find the movie all that funny.
But this is not to say the movie is a complete dud. It's not. I like Lemmon's performance as Prince Hapnik. It's a little over the top, and too cartoonish, but in a movie like this he fits right in. I also enjoyed Natalie Woods' performance, who spends much of the second half of the film in her underwear (wink, wink). And if you're going to make an old-fashion comedy like this you just gotta have a great pie fight. And I like the score by Henry Mancini, who's music is always pleasing. But that about does it.
I see I'm the odd man out here, everyone seems to like this movie. But if I went along with the parade I wouldn't be honest with myself. I'm simply think the movie is too long, not funny, and tries to do too many things at once. I don't hate this movie, but I don't like it either. I'm sort of in the middle of the road.
Bottom-line: Not a very funny Blake Edwards comedy. Goes on way too long and combines too many different genre without setting a proper place. One of the best things about the film is Natalie Woods in her undies. |
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