CineTV and LOLZ have teamed up for a contest to discuss Best Comedy Movie. There are so many great comedies produced over the years that it makes for a tough choice, especially when you have a lot of favorites to choose from. Here's the link to the contest - @cinetv/cinetv-and-lolz-best-comedy-movie-contest
My choice – It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with an ensemble cast of Hollywood greats that included Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Jonathon Winters, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Mermen, Jim Backus, Phil Silvers, and many others, along with cameos from many comedy greats including Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, the Three Stooges, and Buster Keaton. It was fun watching this film again with my Bonnie Bride (kidlet, being a teenager, refused to watch it).
Film trailer on youtube.com
The film is about a mad cap race set off when some motorists stop to check on a vehicle that went flying off the road, the driver of which, Smiler Grogan (played by Jimmy Durante) tells the motorists who stopped to help him, of $350,000 that he buried under the “Big W” in Santa Rosita Park, he then kicks a conveniently placed bucket as he passes on to the great beyond. The motorists, along with a few others that they tell of the fortune, head to Santa Rosita by various means – cars, trucks, planes, and even a bicycle, leaving a string of wrecked vehicles and other destruction in their wake. And the cops are watching the whole mess with great interest, as they want to recover the money, which had been stolen in a robbery some 15 years earlier.
What makes this film work so well is an interesting story about human behavior. It is a case study of what lengths people will go through to get a pile of “free” money. It is also a classic example of a situation comedy, where the writer creates a situation, tosses it at their characters, and sees what they do. In this case, one situation leads to another. Two characters are flying in an airplane when their pilot (Jim Backus), as a few too many drinks and gets knocked unconscious, leaving Rooney and Hackett to attempt to fly the plane and eventually land it. Another couple gets stuck in the basement of a hardware store, and go through great lengths to break out of the building and continue the quest for money. And so many more antics.
One piece of interesting trivia about this film that I ran across on IMDB is:
"The film was so crammed with action that each leading actor was given two scripts: one for the dialogue and one for physical comedy."
source - IMDB Trivia
There is a lot more interesting trivia for this film over on IMDB; well worth checking out.
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a long film, especially for the era in which it was made (1963), and includes a musical overture before the credits roll, an intermission (time to get more popcorn and sodas), and an ending musical score (is that still called an overture, or is there a different term for that?).
It’s a great, classic film with a lot to offer, and, yes, I expect to watch it again sometime in the future. It was a difficult to choose one film to write about, and time didn’t permit me to set down and watch other favorite films (I try to do this for every film I write about so that it is fresh in my mind), but I am sure other contributors will hit on other favorites of mine, and soon to be favorites.
As always, thanks for stopping by.