It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

Also Starring:

Edie Anderson, Jim Backus, Jack Benny, Ben Blue, Joe E. Brown, Alan Carney, Barie Chase, Lloyd Corrigan, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Selma Diamond, Peter Falk, Norman Fell, Paul Ford, Stan Freberg, Sterling Holloway, Edward Everett Horton, Marvin Kaplan, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Charles Lane, Jerry Lewis, Charles McGraw, ZaSu Pitts, Carl Reiner, Madlyn Rhue, Arnold Stang, The Three Stooges, Jesse White,

and JIMMY DURANTE as Slimer Grogan

My dad always loved this one while my mom hated it. I think some of it is very funny though some parts drag on too long. As a kid I was fascinated by the angry go-go dancer with Dick Shawn. Thinking about it now maybe she was a prostitute and that’s why she was so stone-faced? That or she takes her dancing VERY seriously

R2 I always took it as they were drugged out. He got all hyper and she was just chill

Of course, I also love Dick Shawn as Hitler

This movie is the best proof that America’s plastic fantastic 60s culture was VERY READY for the cultural revolution of the late 60s.

Is there any trace of original 193-minute roadshow version?

Terry-Thomas explains America's preoccupation with bosoms

[quote] the angry go-go dancer with Dick Shawn. Thinking about it now maybe she was a prostitute and that’s why she was so stone-faced? That or she takes her dancing VERY seriously

She was one of the best dancers of her day. In this scene she is supposed to be stoned out of her mind. She plays a married neighbor he is trucking behind her husband's back and they cut out the scene but when Dick Shawn drives off to rescue mom Ethel Merman, that's her husband's car he takes and ultimately wrecks.

That's *Miss Barrie Chase*, r2!

This movie was released a week and a half before I was born, and two weeks before JFK was murdered.

Who/which group were your rooting for?

Sid Cesar and Edie Adams as Dr. and Mrs. Melville Crump, DDS

Milton Berle and Dorothy Provine as Mr. J. Russell and Emeline Finch; Ethel Merman as Mrs. Marcus

Mickey Rooney as Ding Bell and Buddy Hackett as Benjy Benjamin

Jonathan Winters as Lennie Pike

Phil Silvers as Otto Meyer

Terry-Thomas as Lt. Col. Algernon Hawthorne

Dick Shawn as Sylvester Marcus

Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Peter Falk as Cab Drivers 1 and 2

The pilot who did the spectacular stunt flying ( such as through the billboard ) ran out of luck on another movie not too long afterwards.

I saw it a few years ago. It seemed like a mixed bag and perhaps over long. The Phil Silvers sequence could have been cut down and a little Merman went a long way. The flight sequence was saved by Backus. Rooney was tiresome and the service station sequence wasn't that much fun.

I don't care for over the top slapstick.

Wow that was really hard to listen to, r9. I’ll stick with her emotionless dancing

R13 I always felt we needed MORE Merman

Don Rickles should have been in this

Kramer wanted Groucho or Judy Garland for the role that eventually went to Merman (who absolutely should have been nominated for an Oscar).

It was a great movie. Its under the big "w".

Rickles was still a serious actor when this film was cast. Nearly the whole cast was a Who's Who of nearly forgotten comedians.

Nick Stewart as the migrant truck driver was terrific. I loved his dry line delivery.

Pre Beatles era before the world changed.

Jonathan Winter’s’ character was definitely my favorite!

Whaddayamean “tax-free”?!?

This is a shitty movie that isn't amusing, either.

I was 7 when the film came out and we went to Boston to see it. We had seen Ethel Merman in "Gypsy" a year or so earlier when it was on-tour in Boston, and I loved "The Merm". She'd been amazing and, in this film, she made me laugh until I cried. I thought she was wonderful then and appreciate her comedic talents even more now. I agree she should have been Oscar nominated for Supporting Actress.

Sid Caesar wasn't meant to be in the film. That role was meant for Ernie Kovacs along with his wife Edie Adams. When Ernie killed himself in that wreck they kept Edie (who very badly needed to money to pay Ernie's debts ) and teamed her with Sid.

I would love to have seen Ernie's version.

My favorite is Sid Caesar and Edie Adams.

They seem happy, educated, a little posh even. Then they ruin their lives and themselves trying to get the money.

It's one of those movies that people remember as better than it really was. It's a pretty bloated affair. Merman was funny, though.

Saw it at this theatre. I was young and thought it was long but I had a gayling crush on Dorothy Provine.

[quote] It's a pretty bloated affair.

Yes but it's so episodic it's easy to FF through the parts you don't care for. In my case those are the Phil Silvers and the Johnathan Winters adventures. And Sid and Edie's basement scenes, but you have to be careful on that one so you don't miss Huntz Hall.

Out of that long cast list it looks like Barrie Chase is the only one still alive.

My cousins and I were poor as fuck so we never went to the movies. We really looked forward to movies debuting on Friday and Saturday Night At The Movies on tv, where first run” films debuted about a year or two after being in theaters. We couldn’t wait to see Mad, Mad World.

But we got really tired of it, really fast. It was supposed to be frenetically funny but it was contrived frenzy.

OTOH, we loved The Russians Are Coming and Wait Until Dark. The Producers and Bedazzled were next level.

I got fuckef under the actual "the Big W" which was in Palos Verdes.

W stands for whore, evidently.

[quote]Edie Anderson

My Rochester transitioned?

Well!

Was I the only gayling turned on by swarthy Dick Shawn dancing in his speedo??

My parents' favorite movie.

Second was "Paint Your Wagon."

Never before has so much Jewish and Goyim ham been served up with so much competition to be displayed.

[quote]Was I the only gayling turned on by swarthy Dick Shawn dancing in his speedo??

It wasn't a speedo but at one point he leans back and we do something peek out out from those shorts.

They are supposed to be high on marijuana. The dancer had never done marijuana and didn't want to try it so her friend, Steve McQueen coached her on how to act stoned. It has been argued that this is the first time we see someone smoking marijuana (when she's lying in bed) in a movie.

The dance scene

[quote] It has been argued that this is the first time we see someone smoking marijuana

Not quite the first

Very good pre-code film

The bohunk character made me laugh and also puzzled me

I saw it, in a theater

It's just a lot of fun, but overlong.

My claim to fame is that I saw it in its premiere engagement at the Cinerama Dome. There are bits that have been lost that I remember.

I have a lot of affection for it; but people see the list of cast members and think it's going to be a roll-in-the-aisles constant laff-a-thon. It isn't (nor did it try to be), and so people who have had their expectations disappointed have negative feelings about the film. They shouldn't, because it's a lot of fun with some sterling performances (Berle, Shawn, Merman, Winters, and Hackett and Rooney play well together). Really, it should be considered a lighthearted action adventure with some laughs along the way.

It's available in the long version . . . except some minutes here and there they only have the soundtrack, so they fill it in visually with stills.

My favorite part is the opening credits.

Sid Cesar & Edie Adams also shared a variety hour, in which they alternated as hosts. The cigars that Edie and Ernie Kovacs used to promote was the sponsor. It only lasted half a season.

[quote]The cigars that Edie and Ernie Kovacs used to promote

They had a NAME!!!!

BC...

Spencer Tracy's scenes bring the film to a screeching halt! He is the worst one in the film. The Merm is a fucking hoot and a holler.

Like Blake Edwards dreadful The Great Race (1965) IAMMMMW gets sidetracked too often and seems endless.

[quote]Like Blake Edwards dreadful The Great Race

You mean the one starring our GODDESS Miss Vivian Vance?

Not funny at all.

R48 I disagree! I think Tracy brings the seriousness to it.

There is a scene when he is smiling and asks for an ice cream sundae lol

That smile is priceless

R25 I had just turned eight and we drove into Boston to the Cinerama to see it. I'm waving at you from 1963.

(r53) I was 7 when we drove down from New Hampshire to see it in Boston at the Cinerama. I think you waved to me!

[Quote] It has been argued that this is the first time we see someone smoking marijuana

in Orson Welles' 1958 film Touch of Evil Mercedes McCambridge's over age delinquent smokes 'the marijuana'.

Reefer Madness 1936

Not 1936 nor 1934.

Try 1932.

A very good pre-code William Powell movie where the adulteress wins.

yes r58, we saw that at r40

There are probably more laughs in Stanley Kramer's Ship of Fools (1965)

SHIP OF FOOLS ^^^

As a kid i felt so bad for all the characters because nobody got the money in the end, they blew a big chance to work together and Spencer Tracey lost his pension - I think.

The REASON that “THESE THINGS HAPPEN” is that the world is full of people who, when these things happen, just say “THESE THINGS HAPPEN” — and THAT’S WHY THEY HAPPEN!!!

That movie was responsible for my learning the meaning of "kicked the bucket." (I was only 11 when I saw it in the theater.)

That’s funny, r64. I remember my dad having to explain that joke to me as a kid

Merm is SO funny in this.

R66 Only if being loud and obnoxious is funny; otherwise, she's tiresome. BTW she seems more like Berle's wife than his mother-in-law

As a young person, I never found this funny. way too long and too,many ugly people to look at. Saw it middle aged and I finally got it. It’s almost plays a Shakespeare play about human weakness and the sin of greed. And a lot of it is very funny. And isn’t the whole world just people screwing each over for a buck?

…plays like a

Jonathan Winters is my favorite in this.

This was my Dad's favorite movie.

This was one of the films they put on at school on those days when the teachers didn't feel like doing any work. Always some old corny shit like this or Blackbeard's Ghost.

I love Midnight Madness though, which was definitely inspired by this film. It's silly and camp without being as tediously long.