It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World | | Cast : | Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney | | Director : | Stanley Kramer | | Studio : | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | November 07, 1963 | | DVD Released Date : | October 07, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | G (General Audience) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 30, 2005 | | Summary | One of the funniest movies ever made | Content
 | I came to IAMMW through the back door - I rented, then purchased, Rat Race and thought it was hysterical. My wife mentionned how hysterical IAMMW was, and how similar to Rat Race (it was, in fact, the inspiration fo the film. Being old enough to remember seeing IAMMW at the great Zeigfeld theater in NY, I purchased a copy of the DVD expecting the film to be dated, both technically and in terms of the editing/flow of the film as many 60s films are. Boy was I wrong. IAMMW remains one of the funniest films of all time. Few films made today can unite a family in laughter as this film does. My teenagers and I love films like Meet The Fockers, and even even Farelly Bros comedies - well, some Farrely Bros comedies. We are not a strictly "G" rated bunch. But when you watch a film like this you realize what's been lost - the purity of the humor, the basic, universal silliness of the timeless gags and the true comedic genius of some of these masters. (Sid Ceasar - oh my god - don't get me started). Buy this film. Pray for its restoration (see the excellent commentary above from 8/05) Cook up, er, microwave, some popcorn, sit around the screen with osme friends and family - -and prepare to laugh. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 15, 2005 | | Summary | When movies were movies! | Content
| Spencer Tracy delivers an outstanding performance. Not only is this movie full of laughs, it is also filled with family entertainment that they do not have today.My personal favorite was the fire engine scene; Especially the part when Peter Falk went right through the bridge. The only part of the movie I hated was every scene with Ethel Merman. This movie is one for your collecetion, a must have. This is a really well written script delivered by an awesome cast. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 15, 2005 | | Summary | It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World | Content
| It's very funny and great to see the old timers bring original comedy to the screen. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 15, 2005 | | Summary | My Favorite Comedy of the Sound Era | Content
| Stanley Kramer's IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963, UA) is my favorite comedy of the sound era and the most fondly remembered movie of my 1960's childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has a sunny and airy mood, the comedy cast of a lifetime, sharp and hilarious dialogue, an irrestible greed plot, a melodic music score by Ernest Gold, and furious pacing for almost, or just over, three hours (depending on what version you are watching). The more I watch it on DVD at 161 minutes or at 182 minutes on Turner Classic Movies, the more I love it and want to see the long-lost 192 minute Cinerama world premiere version.
MAD WORLD does something right that every other movie of its type gets wrong--it starts a chase plot in reel one, then develops character outward as we go along. It does not spend 45 minutes setting up the story, as similar movies do. In the opening scene, a dying millionaire (Jimmy Durante) tells a group of people in the Southern California desert that a large sum of money is buried "under a big W" in a park south of San Diego. Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett are gag writers headed for Las Vegas. Milton Berle is headed for a vacation with wife Dorothy Provine and Ethel Herman as the mother-in-law to beat all mothers-in-law. Sid Caesar and Edie Adams are a dentist and his wife. And Jonathan Winters is driving a van of furniture. Monitoring all of them, as they race after the money, is Spencer Tracy as the coastal city (a compilation of Long Beach and Santa Monica) police captain with a wall map.
So we have a slapstick chase movie to end all slapstick chase movies. (WARNING: PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!!) Heading a golden age of television cast are Caesar and Adams, who get to fly in a makeshift plane, then get locked in a hardware store basement. In a career performance, Winters hilariously gets to completely demolish a desert gas station. Berle has a running battle with the mother-in-law from Hell, Merman, who in turn has been given some gloriously acidic dialogue by superb sreenwriters William and Tania Rose. The Roses have never been given enough credit here. All of the sublime dialogue is on the printed page. Along the way, Winters meets up with Phil Silvers, who in turn mixes up with miner Mike Mazurki. Silvers is staggeringly funny with a car at the bottom of a canyon, then later drowning in a river. Rooney and Hackett are in another plane that flies through a Coke billboard after pilot Jim Backus knocks himself unconscious. There is also Dick Shawn as Merman's lifeguard son at Silver Strand Beach. And a phone running battle in his inner police office with Tracy and his wife and daughter that escalates over a simple vacation. And this is only part one, before the film's intermission! Part two has some of the funniest dialogue and greatest car chases in all of movie history for me. And the grand climax has never been topped for me--not even by silent era clowns.
MAD WORLD got mixed reviews when it opened city by city in late 1963, right before President Kennedy's tragic death in Dallas. The positive ones praised a wonderful cast and hilarious chase plot. The negative reviews said it was too long and repetitious at 193 minutes. So producer/director Kramer and his editors carefully cut the Cinerama world premiere version, two months into its run, to 162 minutes. It played in 70mm Cinerama engaggements at 162 minutes until 35mm engagements in Spring 1965. It was further cut then to 154 minutes with roadshow music and intermission removed. All 35mm prints today--and since 1965--run 154 minutes. The DVD, which may or may not still be for sale, restores roadshow music and runs 161 minutes. At an aspect ratio of 2.55, it also blessedly comes close to restoring the ultra-wide widescreen images of the original film. Maddeningly, though, this 161 minute DVD print is curiously missing the Oscar-nominated title song overture.
But there is also a 182 minute print of MAD WORLD (!), restored by my dear filmmaker friend Paul Scrabo, MGM executives, and a dying Kramer in 1991. That is the version that hit VHS and laserdisc in 1991 with a splendid hour-long documentary that I wish could be seen nowadays. It briefly surfaced on one DVD edition, then removed from another that has no bonus material. (So we have two different 161 minute DVD prints that may both be on moratorium! One with a lot of bonuses and one with none. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world!) Anyway, the 1991 documentary combines behind-the-scenes filmmaking with cast/crew reminiscences. Almost everyone recalls a lot of hard work in desert heat, but also a heck of a lot of slapstick fun. One other thing I love about the movie is that the Southern California desert landscapes are deserted for miles--no other cars and no homes, just an occasional truck and gas station.
For 22 years, Paul and I and others have been on a futile quest to restore IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD back to its original 192 minute Cinerama world premiere length. The closest we have come is the 182 minute reconstruction on home video and cable TV, and it includes preview material. So we are still missing at least ten minutes of crucial visual material and as much as fifteen minutes. Included in the still lost material (I have the complete script--I think) are Shawn stealing his married girlfriend's (!) convertible, more of Buster Keaton's cameo as a crook, getting Jim Backus INTO a shower he subsequently is removed from, the identity of a strange man in the police station (he is a police reporter told to sit on the story for now), Tracy learning who Silvers is (an unemployed piano player and gambler), and the beginning of almost all the police office scenes. Current prints, including the 182, join them in progress.
There are easy-to-find Internet articles on Stanley Kramer's immortal masterpiece that claim the great Robert Harris and James Katz, who restored VERTIGO and MY FAIR LADY among others, want to reconstruct MAD WORLD. My Internet sources claim Harris has in his possession "188 minutes of bona fide world premiere footage." Only four minutes missing off the original 192 minute print--close enough for me! The Internet claims further that Harris just is waiting for a $2 million purchase order--lunch money in today's Hollywood--to do the work that needs to be done to restore this wonderful movie back to the length it ran when it opened in Los Angeles on November 7, 1963; the version that early in 1964 got six Oscar nominations.
We owe it to the memory of a great filmmaker and a magnificent cast, many still very much alive, to reconstruct and restore IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD from 154 or 161 minutes to 192 minutes for theatrical re-release (it has always been an audience favorite) and letterboxed 2.76 ratio home video sales. It is a precious part of our cinematic and cultural heritage. THIS REVIEW IS BASED ON THE 161 MINUTE DVD and 182 MINUTE CABLE TV PRINTS.
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| Rating | | | Date | August 14, 2005 | | Summary | Wonderful to Have this Movie | Content
| It's been so long since this movie has been on TV and I have missed the Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It's a movie that always makes me laugh and laugh. Most of the comics are gone so it's great to see them again and as many times as I want. My only regret was that I ordered the wide screen version when I don't like "short stuff" on my not great big TV. I didn't notice there was a choice. Still I'm glad to have the movie. I love that the old movies are becoming available. |
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