A group of motorists witnesses a car crash in the California desert, and after the driver's dying words indicate the location of a hidden stash of loot, they turn against each other in a rac... Read allA group of motorists witnesses a car crash in the California desert, and after the driver's dying words indicate the location of a hidden stash of loot, they turn against each other in a race across the state to get to it.A group of motorists witnesses a car crash in the California desert, and after the driver's dying words indicate the location of a hidden stash of loot, they turn against each other in a race across the state to get to it.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 3 wins & 10 nominations total
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJack Benny's cameo role was originally offered to Stan Laurel, but Laurel turned it down. When his best friend and partner Oliver Hardy died in 1957, he pledged never to perform again. He kept that promise for the rest of his life. By the time this happened, a long shot of the character had already been filmed with a stand-in wearing Laurel's trademark bowler hat. This is why Benny is seen wearing a bowler hat despite never having worn one as part of his regular work.
- GoofsWhen Pike destroys the restrooms to get at Ray and Irwin, it's clear neither restroom has a toilet stall or a sink.
- Quotes
J. Algernon Hawthorne: I must say, if I had the grievous misfortune to be a citizen of this benighted country, I should be the most hesitant at offering any criticism whatever of any other.
J. Russell Finch: Wait a minute, are you knocking this country? Are you saying something against America?
J. Algernon Hawthorne: Against it? I should be positively astounded to hear of anything that could be said FOR it. Why, the whole bloody place is the most unspeakable matriarchy in the whole history of civilization! Look at yourself, and the way your wife and her strumpet of a mother push you through the hoop! As far as I can see, American men have been totally emasculated. They're like slaves! They die like flies from coronary thrombosis, while their women sit under hairdryers, eating chocolates and arranging for every second Tuesday to be some sort of Mother's Day! And this positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms. In all my time in this wretched, godforsaken country, the one thing that has appalled me most of all is this preposterous preoccupation with bosoms. Don't you realize they have become the dominant theme in American culture: in literature, advertising and all fields of entertainment and everything. I'll wager you anything you like: if American women stopped wearing brassieres, your whole national economy would collapse overnight.
- Crazy creditsWhen the globe explodes and credits fall everywhere, the credits of the animators who worked on the title sequence can be seen.
- Alternate versionsBuster Keaton had a longer, earlier scene (cut after premiere). In it, Culpepper telephone's Jimmy at his dockside warehouse and discusses his plans to use Jimmy's boat to escape to Mexico with the stolen money.
- ConnectionsEdited into Bass on Titles (1982)
- SoundtracksIt's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
(uncredited)
Music by Ernest Gold
Lyrics by Mack David
[Sung by an offscreen chorus during the Overture, with instrumental variations in the score throughout the film]
Even armed with the information that an audience cannot sustain laughter for three hours, "Mad World" is not overwhelmingly funny. Though lots of dialogue is amusing and all the performances are outstanding, but the movie suffers from a common delusion of people outside comedy, as Stanley Kramer was, that the mere vision of cars crashing is somehow funny in itself. One is reminded of the spectacular sequence in "1941" when a ferris wheel breaks loose and rolls off a pier into the ocean. The sequence itself is jaw-dropping and extremely well-done, and not funny for a moment.
The value in "Mad World" is its cast. Most of the big names in comedy in the 1950s and 1960s made it into the cast (Ernie Kovaks, arguably the brightest of the lot, originally cast in the Sid Caesar role, unfortunately died not long before shooting started). The casting of name comics in tiny roles doesn't do them justice: Stan Freberg has nothing to do but watch Andy Devine talk on the telephone; Doodles Weaver is an uncredited "Man Outside Hardware Store"; the Three Stooges merely show up to be recognized; even Jack Benny, in a miniscule role funny merely because he's in it, doesn't have an impact today because too few people remember who he was. Again, some milk their small roles for what they are worth, giving the movie an undercurrent of true humor beyond the principals: Don Knotts, Carl Reiner, Jesse White, Paul Ford, Jim Backus.
"Mad World" is most valuable simply because it is a cross-section of comedy in its day. Although he was talented in many ways, anyone unfamiliar with Phil Silvers will see him in a performance that was the epitome of what he was famous for. Dick Shawn's manic wildness is captured forever in a way that is little seen in his few other films. Terry-Thomas, whose brilliance was too often relegated to obscure British films rarely seen anymore, is a joy to watch and his British tilt provides a variation from Americans who learned their craft in the Catskills and Vaudeville. Jonathan Winters, whom Robin Williams used as a prototype, was the most gifted ad-lib comic of his day and rarely showed up well when he was constrained by a script and a sustained character, but he brings off many of the best laughs in this film, and, with Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan the most memorable set piece in the movie. Milton Berle and Micky Rooney both bring lifetimes of stage and screen work to the project, and their input was invaluable.
All the principals (Berle, Caesar, Adams, Rooney, Hackett, Terry-Thomas, Shawn, Silvers, Winters, Anderson, Falk) are good. Even the ones who seem to have been shorted of funny lines, like Edie Adams, and Eddie Anderson, nevertheless come off well. Although they blend well together, there is a subtle fight between them for attention, to steal a scene with a facial expressions (watch Adams' face, for instance, when Caesar drags her away, in front of the "Big W", though you may have to put it on slow-motion) or a bit of business. You can see each of them thinking, at all times. Each gives an intelligent performance, having laboriously hammered out their timing and their business, and they're all thinking, with the clockwork brains the best comedians have. They may not all be funny every minute, but every moment they know what they're doing, crafting better performances than many Oscar-winning serious actors have ever turned in.
Though the movie might be too bloated for the promised three hours' hilarious ride, with too much dependence on, "Hey, there's Edward Everett Horton flicking a switch!" But anyone who loves comedy and its history needs -- deserves -- to see the best in the business of comedy in 1963 interacting with their schtick, especially if they don't mind sitting through -- occasionally mindless -- car chases and crashes.
- vox-sane
- Mar 19, 2001
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
- Filming locations
- Portuguese Point, 5500 Palos Verdes Dr. S., Palos Verdes, California, USA(Santa Rosita Beach State Park - site of the 'Big W')
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $9,400,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $46,332,858
- Gross worldwide
- $46,333,064
- Runtime3 hours 30 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
- 2.55:1
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