It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

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It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Directed by Stanley Kramer
Produced by Stanley Kramer
Written by William Rose
Tania Rose
Starring Spencer Tracy
Milton Berle
Sid Caesar
Jonathan Winters
Mickey Rooney
Buddy Hackett
Buster Keaton
Jimmy Durante
Dick Shawn
Edie Adams
Barrie Chase
Ethel Merman
Distributed by United Artists
Release date(s) November 7, 1963
Running time 161 Min
Theatrical
192 Min
Director's Cut
Language English
Budget $9,400,000
IMDb profile

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is an American motion picture directed by Stanley Kramer about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 of stolen cash by a diverse and colourful group of strangers. The ensemble comedy premiered on November 7, 1963.

Contents

The film begins as the occupants of four vehicles on a lonely highway in the Southern California desert stop to help "Smiler" Grogan (Jimmy Durante in his last screen appearance), who has just careened off the highway in a spectacular crash.

With his dying breaths, he tells the bystanders (Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, and Milton Berle) about "three hundred and fifty 'G's" ($350,000) hidden in the city of Santa Rosita, less than a day's drive away, under a mysterious "big W”. Grogan then expires, literally kicking a bucket. The witnesses immediately begin arguing over how to divide the money, sparking a wild race. Each carload of characters races to be first to Santa Rosita and find the money. Many others, including a cactus-collecting RAF officer played by Terry-Thomas and a sneaky con man played by Phil Silvers, join the race as it progresses.

Berle's character, J. Russell Finch, owns a company that processes edible seaweed and is recovering from a nervous breakdown. He continually pops pills for his nerves throughout. His mother-in-law, Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman) is loud, overbearing and opportunistic. Marcus' son, a beatnik lifeguard (Dick Shawn), is introduced in a wild frenzied dance sequence with his girlfriend (Barrie Chase) to "31 Flavors" (an unabashed plug for Baskin-Robbins), sung by the Shirelles.

Unbeknownst to the treasure hunters, Captain Culpepper (Spencer Tracy) of the Santa Rosita Police has been working on the Smiler Grogan Case for years. He suspects the various people who heard Grogan's last words may know where the money is hidden and has their progress tracked by various police units, including helicopters.

Rooney and Hackett enlist the aid of a wealthy pilot Jim Backus, who has a penchant for drink (even while flying.) Caesar's character and his wife (Edie Adams) charter a Curtiss JN-4D "Jenny" World War I-era biplane which almost falls apart. They ultimately get locked in a hardware store basement once they arrive in Santa Rosita. Peter Falk and Eddie Anderson (who played Rochester on Jack Benny's radio and TV shows) appear as Santa Rosita Yellow Cab drivers.

Silvers' character stops to pick up the bicycling Winters, whose van is kaput, but when the dim-witted van driver spills the beans about the treasure, Silvers tricks Winters into getting out of his car. The clever Silvers leaves Winters on the roadside while speeding off to get the money for himself (Winters' facial expressions provide the bulk of the humor in his role, especially during this sequence). Winters later catches up with Silvers at a newly opened service station owned by two nerdy attendants (Marvin Kaplan and Arnold Stang) and tries to attack him. Stang's character knocks Winters out with a bottle of oil and the two try to tie him up with duct tape, but Winters gets free, goes on a rampage that destroys the station, and steals the company's Dodge Power Wagon wrecker.

Culpepper is anticipating a nice vacation since the Smiler Grogan case—which he has worked for 15 years—will be solved once the travelers find the hidden cash. He continues to monitor their progress as reports filter in from various police units. He starts to get ideas of his own about what should happen to all that money, however.

Berle, Caesar, Rooney, and Hackett mug for the camera in the opening scene of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Berle, Caesar, Rooney, and Hackett mug for the camera in the opening scene of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, all the main characters eventually converge on Santa Rosita State Park. Culpepper hurries to intercept them, telling his officers to back off and let him handle the situation. The money is soon dug up under the "big W," a group of four palm trees planted diagonally to resemble the letter. Culpepper quietly approaches (after they finish arguing about how the money will be divided) and requests that they turn themselves in. Obviously, the authorities will be more lenient if they go voluntarily. Everyone piles into two taxicabs and heads for police headquarters, while Culpepper makes a break for it with the money.

Culpepper has decided to flee to nearby Mexico. His plan is in place, including a fast boat to deliver him south. But the treasure-seekers realize that Culpepper has turned the opposite way out of the State Park, so they pursue him. Culpepper, driving his police-issue Dodge, is chased by the treasure-seekers and his scheme unravels. The pursuit is a great car chase on highways and through town resulting in the eventual destruction of all three vehicles at an old building in downtown Santa Rosita that is about to be torn down.

In a madcap conclusion, all the men are tossed off a rescue ladder and the suitcase filled with cash spills open. The money flutters down to the excited crowd on the street below, and the male treasure hunters wind up in the hospital. This is where the story ends; Culpepper and the other men are moaning and groaning, bruised, bandaged, in traction, lamenting the loss of the money and facing punishment. Culpepper, in visible disgust, remarks humorously: "The only reason that you ten idiots are gonna get off lightly is because the judge will have me up there to throw the book at." Culpepper doubts that he will laugh about something ever again. Then loud-mouthed Merman enters and slips on a banana peel (tossed in disgust by Hackett) and falls hard in the midst of another bombastic tirade. Even Culpepper eventually breaks down and everyone (except for Merman) ends up laughing hysterically.

Although well known for serious films such as Inherit the Wind and Judgment at Nuremberg (both starring Spencer Tracy), Kramer set out to make the ultimate comedy film with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. At more than three hours in its original roadshow version, including overture, intermission and exit music, the result is certainly one of the longest.

Filmed in Ultra Panavision 70 and presented in Cinerama (becoming one of the first Cinerama films originated with one camera), it also had an all-star cast, with literally dozens of major comedy stars from all eras of cinema making appearances in the film.

The film followed a Hollywood trend in the 1960s of producing "epic" films as a way of wooing audiences away from television and back to movie theaters. Television had sapped the regular moviegoing audience and box-office revenues were dropping, so the major studios experimented with a number of gimmicks to attract audiences, including widescreen films.

The title was taken from Thomas Middleton's 1605 comedy A Mad World, My Masters. Kramer considered adding a fifth "mad" to the title before deciding that it would be redundant, but noted in interviews that he later regretted it.

The film's theme music was written by Ernest Gold with lyrics by Mack David.

In the 1970s, ABC broadcast the film on New Year's Eve. The last reported showing of the film on major network television was on May 16, 1978.

The early scenes in which Grogan goes off the road and the four vehicles briefly speed before slowing down to stop and talk were filmed on the “Seven Steps” section of the Palms-to-Pines Highway (state highway 74), a generally east-west route mostly south of, and west of, Palm Desert, California. Culpepper forecasts the vehicles — going east — will turn south (a right turn), but the movie shows them turn left. The corner where Durante's car sails off, known by "Mad World" fans as "Smiler's Point", can easily be spotted today on Highway 74, minus the man-made ramp that was removed after the stunt was performed.

Many of the actors performed some of their own stunts, including some crashing falls by Caesar, physical antics by Jonathan Winters, and Phil Silvers' drive into a flowing river where he almost drowned. Caesar severely injured his back while filming the hardware store scene and was unable to return to the film for some time. Silvers injured himself shortly before the shooting of the scene (one of the last) where the male characters chase Culpepper up several flights of stairs and onto fire-escape ladders. As shot, the scene features Silvers' stunt double.

The gas station scene with Jonathan Winters, Marvin Kaplan and Arnold Stang was filmed at a specially constructed set built on composer Jimmy Van Heusen's property near Palm Springs, California. Van Heusen first saw the completed gas station on his Friday drive from Los Angeles out to his weekend retreat. He did not know the gas station was a movie set, thinking instead that his business manager had leased a portion of his property for an actual service station. The destruction scene with Winters, Kaplan and Stang was filmed that weekend, with the site cleanup scheduled for the next week. On Monday morning's return trip to Los Angeles, Van Heusen saw the destroyed gas station lying in a pile and thought something terrible had happened. As the property owner, he believed he might be sued by injured parties.

During shooting of the gas station's destruction, the water tower began to collapse too soon because of a special-effects miscue. A combination of a split-screen effect and use of the optical printer repaired the scene.

Much of the scenes that take place on what look like lonely stretches of road were filmed in areas of Southern California that have become heavily urbanized in the decades following the movie's production; in the scene where Jack Benny encounters Milton Berle's character and his group, the entire area, which was practically open desert in the movie, is now a modern suburban neighborhood in Yucca Valley, with a Walgreens store, a Wal-Mart, and other major retailers all around.

The airport terminal scenes were filmed at the now-defunct Rancho Conejo Airport in Newbury Park, California, though the control tower shown was constructed only for filming. Other plane sequences were filmed at the Sonoma County Airport north of Santa Rosa, California.

In one scene, a Beech model C-18S flies through a billboard. The plane was flown by stuntman Frank Tallman, but a communications mixup resulted in the use of linen graphic sheets on the sign rather than paper, as planned. Linen is much tougher than paper, and the plane was nearly destroyed on impact. Tallman managed to fly it back to the airstrip, discovering that the leading edges of the wings had been smashed all the way back to the wing spars. Tallman considered that the closest he ever got to dying on film.

In the movie the airplane is shown crashing through an airport restaurant plate glass window and stopping abruptly. Careful viewing will show an arresting cable that was tied to the tail of the airplane at just the right length to make the aircraft stop as it hits a curbing while smashing through the restaurant windows.

The park, where the big W was shown, was located on the grounds of a private residence, located in Rancho Palos Verdes, where only one of the four palm trees remains. There is speculation that the missing trees may be replanted sometime in the future in commemoration of the film.

The final chase scene was filmed in Santa Monica, most notably at the California Incline, and downtown Long Beach. The cars can be seen passing the Pike amusement park with its wooden rollercoaster and traveling around Rainbow Pier. The Arcade under Ocean Boulevard near Pine Avenue also is part of the scene.

Compulsive gambler Phil Silvers had a running craps game going during the production. Jerry Lewis reportedly stopped by the set and left $500 poorer according to Something a Little less Serious, a documentary on the DVD (Lewis has a brief cameo appearance early in the film).

The film ran 210 minutes in its preview showing. Stanley Kramer cut the film to 192 minutes for the premiere release. This was the version that Kramer was satisfied with. During its Roadshow 70mm run, United Artists, seeing that it had a mammoth hit on its hands, cut the film to 162 minutes without Kramer's involvement in order to add an extra daily showing. The general release 35mm version runs 154 minutes (no overture or exit music). At the film's premiere, radio transmissions between the film's fictional police played in the theater lobby and rest rooms during the intermission. The police transmissions featured Detective Matthews (Charles McGraw) and the police personnel that follow the group. These three reports (each approx. one minute in length) may have added to the 210 minute length.

Some of the cut footage remains missing, although 20 minutes of material was found, consisting of a mixture of Cinerama (rectified for screen curve) footage and Ultra-Panavision footage.) MGM/UA also located a 20 minute 70mm "preview reel" which contained a few scenes in their entirety. These two 70mm reels provided the extra scenes for the "Special Edition version with restored footage" project. of 1991. No "out-take" footage was used, with the exception of a two-second wide shot of the Beechcraft aircraft, needed to bridge a highly sought-after bit of Buddy Hackett being doused with a bucket of water. (Though it is possible that the brief shot played in previews.)

While not officially referring to it as a "director's cut", Stanley Kramer helped oversee the re-incorporation of this missing footage into a 182-minute "special edition" video version for VHS and LaserDisc. Screenwriter Tania Rose was also contacted by the Special Edition team and after viewing the footage gave her endorsement to the project.

Because of the quality of the missing scenes, the lack of a large budget for a "film" restoration, and a lack of interest at the time by restoration experts, it was decided that a digital tape reconstruction for presentation on Laserdisc would at least be a venue for film fans to finally see the footage. Years later, the improved quality of DVD would make the poor quality of the restored footage more jarring, so the standard edited version is presented instead. The "special edition" version has aired on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Comparisons between the two show that the extended version is of inferior video quality to that of the DVD, since film transfer techniques and formats have improved over the ten year period.

Currently, the best existing footage is in the form of original 70mm elements of the general release version (recent restored versions shown in revival screenings are derived from these elements). However, some, if not all of the remaining footage does exist in some form, although it is deteriorating because of the passage of time. A restoration effort currently is under way by preservationist Robert A. Harris in an attempt to bring the film back as close as possible to the original roadshow release.

The official release from MGM is the 161-minute general release version, taken from its original 35mm elements. Because of this, it's presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, as opposed to the full 2.75:1 in anamorphic 70mm form. Two versions of the film have been released on DVD. The first, from 2001, is a double-sided disc containing an hour of missing scenes on the second side, along with the original documentary "Something A Little Less Serious", and trailers and TV spots. In 2003, the film was re-released as a movie-only edition, with disc art on the disc as opposed to being dual-sided. It should be noted that the 2001 release had a yellow spine and is now hard to find, while the 2003 release had a blue spine and is relatively easy to find in stores. Interestingly, the colors in the cartoon credits sequence are incorrect (too red) in the current DVD version. The older Special Edition Laserdisc version is surprisingly more accurate, with the green background in the opening, and the subtle color changes occurring later on. The Special Edition team (consisting of volunteer "Mad World" experts from around the country) had MGM/UA pull a 70mm print for the correct colors.

Fans on message boards such as us.imdb.com have listed the differences between the TCM and DVD versions, since the DVD's deleted scenes are not properly organized to explain their context and some scenes are essentially the same as seen on the DVD, only extended with a bit of material. However, even without the deleted scenes the current DVD version contains what general audiences saw in 1963.

According to one fan's analysis of the TCM extended version (70mm 2.55:1 aspect ratio) and the DVD theatrical version (35mm 2.35:1 aspect ratio):

  • The DVD does not contain the overture, and the main titles are in red, as opposed to the original multi-colored sequence.
  • The TCM version opens with the 1980s animated MGM/UA logo, while the DVD version opens with the familiar MGM Leo The Lion logo (United Artists releases are now part of the MGM library).
  • Part One of the TCM extended version has 14 minutes and 2 seconds of added footage.
  • Part Two of the TCM extended version has 3 minutes and 49 seconds of added footage.
  • The longest stretch of time in the film without added material is 25 minutes and 3 seconds, from timecode 1:53:45 to timecode 2:18:48.

It has been rumored that Kramer's original cut lasted more than five hours, but no evidence has been found to support this.

The film was first released on VHS and LaserDisc by CBS/FOX Video in 1985. In 1990, MGM/UA Home Video released "restored" video version of the film on VHS and LaserDisc. In 2001, MGM Home Entertainment released the film on two-sided DVD with extras. In 2003, MGM Home Entertainment released another DVD of the film but has one-sided disc containing no extras.

In alphabetical order:

Secondary characters:

Cameo appearances by:

  • It's the biggest entertainment ever to hit the Cinerama screen! (70mm Cinerama version)
  • The biggest entertainment ever to rock the screen with laughter! (35mm general release version)
  • Everybody who's ever been funny is in it!
  • If ever this mad, mad, mad, mad world needed It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World it's now! (1970 re-release)

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • The plot of the novel Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey is an homage to the film, with a wide variety of characters chasing after a suitcase containing $5 million in stolen drug money, which was hidden by the thief before he died. There is even a direct reference to the movie, in a scene in which a man drives over a turtle "like Jerry Lewis running over Spencer Tracy's hat in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."
  • The New Avengers episode "The Tale of the Big Why" seems to have borrowed part of its storyline from It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World — at the end of the episode the characters realise they are looking not for a metaphysical "big why" but a physical "big Y".
  • In an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, the characters, following a treasure map, find that they have not been looking for an X marked in the sand, but the location where the shadows of two crossed palm trees falls. Of course, this would change throughout the day, but that does not matter in the greater scheme of the plot (see suspension of disbelief).
  • The crossed palm trees are also used at (real world) In-N-Out Burger restaurants. Founder Harry Snyder's favorite movie was It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which is why many stores have crossing palm trees in front, and some have two.[citation needed]
  • A 1993 episode of Cheers, titled "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Bar," had the Cheers gang tearing up the bar to find a money belt with $6,000,000 supposedly hid there by Robin Colcord several years earlier.
  • An episode of The Simpsons is named "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge".
    • A 1994 episode of The Simpsons, "Homer the Vigilante", features money supposedly hidden beneath a "big T", along with other elements borrowed from the movie, such as Otto Meyer driving into the river while yelling at Bart. The big "W" is in the background. Caricatures of Milton Berle and Buddy Hackett also appear during the scene where the money is being dug up.
    • The Simpsons Movie mob scenes are meant to serve as a homage to this film.
  • The 1987 film Million Dollar Mystery, and the 2001 film Rat Race have similar basic premises.
  • Several references to the film have been made in episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000:
    • In Godzilla vs. Megalon there is a car chase of cars driving downs stairs and Crow T. Robot says in a Phil Silvers voice, "This is no place for a convertible!" The same line is used during Master Ninja when a car flies off of a dock into the water.
    • Similarly, during the film Eegah, there is a scene that takes place outside a hotel where some palm trees are shown, and Crow says (this time imitating Jimmy Durante), "It's under a big W!" The same reference is made during The Thing That Couldn't Die.
    • During the film Laserblast, a gas station is blown up. One of the characters is heard to remark that the place had just been rebuilt "after Jonathan Winters' rampage."
    • At various times, characters in the series can be heard to say the line "out, baby, out, out, out!" which (if not a direct reference) bears more than a passing resemblance to a line Dick Shawn's character says during the "digging" sequence.
  • A 2007 episode of Lost opens with a framing of a "W" of palm trees, and includes a shot of one character reproducing Phil Silvers between trees at Santa Rosita, and another reproducing the dying Jimmy Durante. The serial also features similar theme music, a sanitarium named Santa Rosa, an implausibly crashed Beechcraft, and according to some interpretations a similarly themed plot.
  • MAD Magazine issued a book titled "It's a World, World, World, World Mad" and made numerous references to the movie during the 1960s and 1970s. Mad artist Jack Davis illustrated the film's poster, as well as the book-cover parody of the poster.
  • An Indian film "Dhamaal" released in September 2007 was based on a similar story line. The garden in this film was the San Sebastian garden in the coastal Indian state of Goa.

On January 9, 2007, Karen Sharpe Kramer, widow of Stanley Kramer, and film producer Edward Bass announced that a sequel entitled It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD World is in the works. The film would be, like the original, a large ensemble movie mixing comics and dramatic actors. The story follows the descendants of the characters from the first movie who are thrust into another madcap chase to find a cache of money after it is revealed that the bills found in the first movie were counterfeit. Original cast members Sid Caesar and Jonathan Winters, among others, may reprise their original roles.

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Films directed by Stanley Kramer
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