It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
1963
*
Director: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters
With his final words, a car crash victim reveals to a group of strangers the location of a buried fortune. What follows is a frantic and chaotic contest, where the greedy participants attempt to outmaneuver one another. Stanley Kramer's influential work launched an entire subgenre in the 1960s, the ensemble adventure comedy, which features an all-star cast who take part in a chaotic and sprawling race. It was quickly followed by works such as The Great Race and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965). Viewing the film for the first time more than 60 years later, it turns out to be an endless, humourless, and frankly insufferable comedy full of whimsy, speeded-up slapstick, and shrill performances.
