038 - It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, 1963, United States. Dir. Stanley Kramer.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

038 - It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, 1963, United States. Dir. Stanley Kramer.

Stanley Kramer made serious movies.  Important movies.  Movies that had something to say.  Movies that told a message.  Movies that preached.

Here are a few of them:

The Defiant Ones, 1958 - Race relations in America; nominated for 9 Oscars, won 2.

Inherit the Wind, 1960 - The Scopes Monkey Trial; nominated for nominated for 4 Oscars.

Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961 - The war crimes trial of four Nazis; nominated for 11 Oscars, won 2.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1967 - Race relations in America; nominated for 10 Oscars, won 2.

The public knew him as a director of dramas.  Critics knew him as a director of dramas.  Bosley Crowther of The New York Times claimed he was only a director of dramas, that Kramer could not make a comedy.

So Kramer had to prove him wrong.  He had to make a comedy to prove to himself and to the world that he could make a funny movie.

He made the biggest comedy of all time.

One of the greatest epic films ever made, with the largest all-star cast ever assembled.

Someone on the supplemental materials claims that 114 comedians appear in this picture.  Perhaps that is not even counting the dramatic actors.

The film is 3 hours, 17 minutes long, in our version.

It was filmed in Single-Panel Cinerama, also known as Ultra Panavision 70.

It was filmed on 70-mm film. 

With 6-track stereophonic sound. 

In glorious Technicolor.

It begins with a blank screen for 10 seconds, giving time for the Cinerama road show curtains to open.

It follows with a 7-minute animated opening credit sequence.

The titles were designed by the legendary Saul Bass.

The music is played by all 110 members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra.  The score is composed by Ernest Gold.

The Ken Darby Singers sing the opening song.

It was shot by the legendary cinematographer Ernest Laszlo.

It took six months to film.  It was shot on location as well as on sound stages.  Sometimes they filmed in the desert, in temperatures reaching 120 degrees.

No movie has ever had this many stars in it, and it is hard to believe any movie ever will.

Everyone in Hollywood wanted to be in it.

It is its own film school on how to make a movie.

There are stunts galore, including synchronized car driving, car chases, car crashes, truck crashes, things flying off of trucks, a car sinking in the river, airplanes, airplane crashes, an airplane flying through a billboard, an airplane flying upside down, people hanging upside down, helicopters, people fighting, people flying, people falling, people landing on electric cables, people hanging by cords, people flipping over, the destruction of an entire gas station, a blow torch catching things on fire, dynamite exploding, too many men on a fire-truck ladder, and Ethel Merman slipping on a banana peel.

The story begins on California Highway 74, the Palms to Pines Scenic Byway cutting through the Palm Desert.

Four groups of motorists are driving through, each with his own purpose, each with a different car that matches his personality.  Suddenly a fifth car comes racing by.  He is in a hurry.  He is speeding.  He is going more than a hundred miles an hour.

It is Smiler Grogan.  He is being chased by the police.  He misses a curve.  He goes straight off an embankment.  His car goes flying through the air and careens, crashing down the side of the desert hill.

The four cars stop.  Five men get out and go down the hill.  They are Sid Caesar and Milton Berle; Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett; and Jonathan Winters.

At the top of the hill are the women: Edie Adams, Dorothy Provine, and Ethel Merman.

Jimmy Durante plays Smiler Grogan.  He is lying on his back on the rocks.  He tells the men that "There's this dough, see?"  $350,000.  Worth around $2,750,000 today.

Hidden under the Big W.

The Big W.

He talks for awhile, and then he kicks the bucket.  Literally.

A couple of police officers come down the hill and questions the men.  No one says anything.  Finally, they are able to go back up the hill and return to their cars.  Everyone plays it cool.  They all get in their cars and begin driving.  They look over their shoulders.  Are the others thinking what we're thinking?

Yes.

Everyone is thinking the same thing.

Everyone wants the money.

Everyone wants to find the money.

Everyone wants to find the Big W.

For the next three hours we will see the wild, zany, madcap race of a group of people that grows from 8 to 15 and encounters hundreds along the way.  As humanity loses its mind in search of instant wealth.

We will follow multiple story lines going through multiple adventures, as well as the folks at the police station following them.

Spencer Tracy is billed as the star.  He is the chief detective, and he is watching the groups.  Yet his home life is messy, and he wants the money too.

I first saw this film in the first grade.  I could not stop laughing.  The next day at school I spoke with a boy named Wendell during recess.  He had watched it the night before also.  (It was on television.)  We talked all recess about it, about how funny it was, about all the things that happened, and about the Big W.

My sons first saw the film around the same age.  They have now seen it about a dozen times.  It still unveils new things with each viewing. 

It has not gotten old.

It is fresh and alive and colorful and entertaining.

It is masterfully made.


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I started writing up some notes on this one.  They are incomplete, but this is a pretty good start.  I'll add to it later.


When the airplane flies through the billboard, it really happens.  The stunt pilot had to fly the plane at 200 mph with a 4-ft clearance on all four sides.

Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney spent seven days filming inside an airplane, and it takes up a minute and a half in the film.  This includes having Hackett flip upside down, hanging by his seatbelt.

Radio Ad 1

While making Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the film's forty-seven stars managed to completely destroy 16 cars, 1 Jeep, 3 trucks, 2 airplanes, 1 restaurant, a pet shop, an airport, one hardware store, a state park, a small town, a granite statue, a condemned building, one billboard, 30 miles of California highway, and 700 yards of clothing material.

They also incurred countless bruises, abrasions, lesions, fractures, bumps, knocks, nicks, hits, humps, misses, concussions, cuts, scrapes, cracks, and boo boos!

THE SPEEDSTER SMILER GROGAN

Jimmy Durante- Smiler Grogan, 1957 Ford Fairlane, State Highway 74, Palm Springs

THE FIVE MEN AT THE CRASH SITE

Milton Berle - J. Russell Finch, owner, Pacific Edible Seaweed Company

Sid Caesar - Melville Crump, dentist

Mickey Rooney - Ding "Dingy" Bell, comedy writer, on vacation to Las Vegas

Buddy Hackett - Benjy Benjamin, comedy writer, on vacation to Las Vegas

Jonathan Winters -  Lennie Pike, mover

THE THREE WOMEN WITH THEM

Ethel Merman - Mrs. Marcus

Dorothy Provine - Emeline Marcus-Finch

Edie Adams - Monica Crump

THE DETECTIVES AT THE SCENE 

Norman Fell - Detective at Grogan's Crash Site

Nicholas Georgiade - Detective at Grogan's Crash Site


THE POLICE AT THE STATIONS

SPENCER TRACEY - Captain T. G. Culpepper

WILLIAM DEMAREST - Police Chief Aloysius

ANDY DEVINE - Sheriff of Crockett County

Stan Freberg - a police officer at Crockett County, cameo by the Composer of the film!

JERRY LEWIS - runs over the police chief's hat

John Clarke - Helicopter Pilot

Don C. Harvey - Policeman in Helicopter

AIRPLANES

Ben Blue - Biplane Pilot

Charles Lane - Airport Manager

Jim Backus - Tyler Fitzgerald, millionaire


1)  Melville and Monica Crump

They are driving a sedan.  Then they take the biplane.  It tears apart.  They arrive in Santa Rosita before anyone, but they get locked in the basement of a hardware store.  They destroy the basement trying to get out.

SID CAESAR - Melville Crump

EDIE ADAMS - Monica Crump

Ben Blue - Biplane Pilot

JACK BENNY - Trouble?  Having any trouble? / Yes, and we don't need any help from you. / Well!

Leo Gorcey - First Cab Driver

Doodles Weaver - Hardware Store Clerk

EDWARD EVERETT HORTON - Mr. Dinckler

SAMMEE TONG - Chinesse Laundryman
Bachelor Father (1957-1962)

PETER FALK - Third Cab Driver

2)  Mrs. Marcus, J. Russell Finch, and Emeline Marcus-Finch

They are driving a convertible.  Then they get in the Jeep with the Englishman Algernon.  Then the women get in the tow truck with Lennie Pike, while the men are in a car.  Then they are all together in the tow truck with Sylvester.

MILTON BERLE - J. Russell Finch

ETHEL MERMAN - Mrs. Marcus

DOROTHY PROVINE - Emeline Marcus-Finch

TERRY-THOMAS - J. Algernon Hawthorne

DICK SHAWN - Sylvester Marcus

Barrie Chase - Sylvester's Girlfriend

I say, what's that man doing honking his hooter?


3) Lennie Pike

JONATHAN WINTERS - Lennie Pike

He is driving a box truck.  Then he drives a little girl's bicycle.  He tries to hitchhike with Otto Meyer (Phil Silvers), who abandons him.  Lennie finds him at Ray & Irwin's garage.  Otto Meyer escapes.  Lennie fights Ray and Irwin and destroys their garage.  Then he takes their tow truck.  He eventually picks up Mrs. Marcus and Emeline.  They pull into a service station just as Russell and Algernon pull out to go back and get them.  Eventually, they all end up together.

4)  Otto Meyer

He is driving a convertible.  He tricks Lennie Pike (Jonathan Winters) and drives off without him.  He picks up the Miner and takes him to his home.  The Miner's son leads him down the hill into the water.  His car sinks.  He hitches a ride with the Nervous Motorist (Don Knotts) and takes his car from him.

PHIL SILVERS - Otto Meyer

MIKE MAZURKI - Miner

Eddie Rosen - Eddie

DON KNOTTS - Nervous Motorist


5) Dingy Bell and Benjy Benjamin
"the little one and the one with the marbles in his mouth"

They are driving a red Volkswagon Beetle.  Then they contract with the Beechcraft airplane.  Then they take a cab.

MICKEY ROONEY - Dingy

BUDDY HACKETT - Benjy Benjamin

CHARLES LANE - Airport Manager

JIM BACKUS - Tyler Fitzgerald

THE THREE STOOGES - firemen

CARL REINER - Tower Controller at Rancho Conejo

EDDIE "ROCHESTER" ANDERSON - Second Cab Driver

Stop kidding, will you?  Get back there and make us some booze!  It's the only way to fly.
Now I'll make an Old Fashioned the Old Fashioned way, the way Dad used to.  /  What if something happens?!  /  What could happen to an Old Fashioned?

RAY & IRWIN'S GARAGE

Arnold Stang - Ray

Marvin Kaplin - Irwin

Chick Chandler - Policeman Outside Ray & Irwin's Garage

Roy Roberts - Policeman Outside Ray & Irwin's Garage

THE PLAYERS

Spencer Tracey (1900-1967) - nominated for 9 Oscars, won 2

Jimmy Durante (1893-1980) - star of Ragtime, Vaudeville, Broadway, Recording, Radio, Television, Film, known especially for his large nose (The Schnoz, The Schnozzola), gravely voice, cigar, ragtime piano playing, the songs "Inka Dinka Doo!," "Make Someone Happy," "I'll Be Seeing You," the catchphrase "Dat's my boy dat said dat!," silent films with Buster Keaton, his trio with Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, and for popularizing the phrase "the elephant in the room."  In the Broadway show Billy Rose Durante led an elephant across the stage.  A police officer asked, "What are you doing with that elephant?"  He replied, "What elephant?"  You may know him for narrating and singing for the animated Christmas special Frosty the Snowman.

Milton Berle (1908-2002) - child star of Silent Films, star of Vaudeville, Broadway, Radio, Television, Film, Las Vegas.  Known as Mr. Television, he became a household name as the host of the Texaco Star Theatre Starring Milton Berle, The Buick-Berle Show, and The Milton Berle Show.
nominated for 3 Emmys, won 1, won 1 special Emmy; won the Guinness Book of World Records record for the greatest number of charity performances by a show business performer

Sid Caeasar (1922-2014) - writer, saxphonist, stand-up comedian, sketch comedian, pantomime, Television, known for Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour; gave writing jobs to Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, and Woody Allen; made his television debut on Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theatre; nominated for 11 Emmys, won 2

Mickey Rooney (1920-2014) - star of Vaudeville, Broadway, Radio, Television, Film, and one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history; worked from 1926 to 2014, with a movie coming out in 2017; known for his Mickey McGuire shorts in the 1920s and 1930s, the Andy Hardy movies in the 1930s and 1940s, musicals with Judy Garland, and many other performances in film and television non-stop for nearly 90 years; nominated for 4 Oscars, won 2 special Oscars. Was the inspiration for the name Mickey Mouse.  The Wikipedia article claims skeptically that Mickey Rooney made the claim for himself.  However, we were told at an official Disney show at Walt Disney World that Mickey Mouse was in fact named after Mickey Rooney, suggested by Walt Disney's wife.

Buddy Hackett (1924-2003) - God's Little Acre, The Music Man, The Love Bug, Scrooged, The Little Mermaid

Jonathan Winters (1925-2013) -  Mork & Mindy (TV), The Smurfs,

Ethel Merman (1908-1984) - Anything Goes, Alexander's Ragtime Band, Stage Door Canteen, There's No Business Like Show Business, Airplane!,

Dorothy Provine (1935-2010) - The Alaskans (TV), The Roaring Twenties (TV), The Great Race (He Shouldn't-A, Hadn't-A, Oughtn't-A Swang On Me!), That Darn Cat,

Edie Adams (1927-2008) - Here's Edie (TV), The Apartment, Up in Smoke

Phil Silvers (1911-1985) - The King of Chutzpah.
The Phil Silvers Show (TV, 1955-1959), The New Phil Silvers Show (TV 1963-1964), The Beverly Hillbillies (TV), You're in the Army Now, All Through the Night, Four Jills in a Jeep, Cover Girl, A Thousand and One Nights, Summer Stock, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,

Terry-Thomas (1911-1990) - The Private Life of Henry VIII, The Mouse on the Moon, Those Magnificent Young Men in Their Flying Machines, Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Robin Hood, The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Dick Shawn (1923-1987) - The Opposite Sex, The Producers, Love at First Bite, Batman & Robin.

William Demarest (1892-1983) - worked from 1927 to 1976, Love and Marriage (TV), Tales of Wells Fargo (TV), My Three Sons (TV), nominated for an Oscar for The Jolson Story (1946)

Andy Devine (1905-1977) - worked from 1926 to 1977

Jim Backus (1913-1989) - I Married Joan (TV, 1952-1955), Mister Magoo (TV, 1960), Hot Off the Wire (TV), The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo (TV), Blondie (TV), Gilligan's Island (TV), The New Adventures of Gilligan (TV), What's New Mr. Magoo? (TV), Gilligan's Planet (TV), Father Was a Fullback, Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town, M  (remake), His Kind of Woman, Deadline U.S.A., Pat and Mike, Don't Bother to Knock, Androcles and the Lion, Angel Face, Francis in the Navy, Rebel Without a Cause, The Opposite Sex, Johnny Cool, Myra Brekinridge, Pete's Dragon,
 
Peter Falk (1927-2011) - The Trials of O'Brien (TV), Columbo (TV), Pocketful of Miracles, Robin and the 7 Hoods, The Great Race, Anzio, Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence, Murder By Death, Opening Night, The Cheap Detective, The In-Laws, The Great Muppet Caper, The Princess Bride, Wings of Desire, The Player, Faraway So Close!, Three Days to Vegas.

Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (1905-1977) - The Jack Benny Program (TV), Harlem Globe Trotters (TV), Jezebel, You Can't Take It With You, Thanks for the Memory, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, Gone with the Wind, Topper Returns, Cabin in the Sky, Broadway Rhythm, Brewster's Millions.

Don Knotts () - The Steve Allen Show (TV), The Red Skelton Show (TV), The Andy Griffith Show (TV), Three's Company (TV), Matlock (TV), No Time for Sergeants, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronaut, The Shakiest Gun in the West, How to Frame a Figg, The Apple Dumpling Gang, No Deposit No Return, Gus, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Hot Lead and Cold Feet, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, The Private Eyes, Cannonball Run II, Pleasantville, Hermie & Friends, Chicken Little, Air Buddies.

Carl Reiner (1922- ) - Caesar's Hour (writer) (TV), The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (writer) (TV), The Dick Van Dyke Show (creator, writer, actor) (TV), Good Morning World (exec. prod., dir.) (TV), The New Dick Van Dyke Show (writer) (TV), Lotsa Luck (writer) (TV), Good Heavens (TV), Hot in Cleveland (TV), Jake and the Never Land Pirates (TV),

Norman Fell (1924-1998) - Three's Company (TV), The Ropers (TV), Teachers Only (TV), Pork Chop Hill, The Rat Race, Ocean's 11, Inherit the Wind, The Killers, The Graduate, Bullitt, Catch-22, Airport 1975, For the Boys

Mike Mazurki (1907-1940) - The Shanghai Gesture, The Moon and Sixpence, Gentleman Jim, Thank Your Lucky Stars, The Canterville Ghost, The Princess and the Pirate, Murder My Sweet, The Thin Man Goes Home, Dick Tracy, Sinbad the Sailor, Nightmare Alley, I Walk Alone, Samson and Delilah, Night and the City, New York Confidential, Blood Alley, Kismet, Around the World in Eighty Days, Some Like It Hot, Pocketful of Miracles, Dick Tracy.

Eddie Rosen - Eddie, the miner's son

Charles Lane (1905-2007) - Dear Phoebe (TV), Dennis the Menace (TV), The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (TV), Petticoat Junction (TV), hundreds of films

Jack Benny (1894-1974) - The Jack Benny Program (radio, TV)

Jerry Lewis (1926- ) - At War with the Army, Cinderfella, The Nutty Professor, Three On a Couch, The King of Comedy

Edward Everett Horton (1886-1970) - worked from 1922 to 1971; Ruggles of Red Gap, La Boheme, The Front Page, Alice in Wonderland, Design for Living, Easy to Love, The Gay Divorcee, The Merry Widow, All the King's Horses, The Devil is a Woman, Top Hat, Hearts Divided, Shall We Dance, College Swing, Holiday, Ziegfeld Girl, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, I Married an Angel, Springtime in the Rockies, Forever and a Day, Arsenic and Old Lace, Pocketful of Miracles, Sex and the Single Girl, The Perils of Pauline.

Leo Gorcey (1917-1969) - one of the Dead End Kids, one of the East Side Kids, and one of the Bowery Boys, Ethelbert "Muggs" McGinnis, Terence Alyosius "Slip" Mahoney

Zazu Pitts (1894-1963) - Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, The Little Princess, Greed, The Squall, No No Nanette (1930), All Quiet On the Western Front (1930), Sin Takes a Holiday, Ruggles of Red Gap, Eternally Yours, No No Nanette (1940),

The Three Stooges

Doodles Weaver (1912-1983) -

Sammee Tong (1901-1964) - Chinese Laundryman
Bachelor Father (TV, 1957-1962)

Buster Keaton (1895-1966) - The Great Stone Face

Terry-Thomas and Dorothy Provine were both in Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die (1963).
Terry-Thomas and Edward Everett Horton were both in The Perils of Pauline (1967).
Dick Shawn and Jim Backus (along with Joan Blondell) were both in The Opposite Sex (1956).
Dick Shawn, Peter Falk, and Jonathan Winters were all in Penelope (1966).
Phil Silvers and William Demarest were both in All Through the Night (1942).
Milton Berle, Phil Silvers, Sterling Holloway, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Mike Mazurki, Doodles Weaver (and Joan Blondell) all played in Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976).
Mickey Rooney and Jim Backus were both in Pete's Dragon (1977).
Phil Silvers and Jim Backus were both in There Goes the Bride (1980).
Jonathan Winters and Carl Reiner were both in The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966).
Zazu Pitts and (Joan Blondell) were both in This Could Be the Night (1957).
Milton Berle and Zazu Pitts were both in the silent film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917).  Berle was around 8 and Pitts was around 23 at the time they made it.