{"id":3573,"date":"2011-09-18T18:23:23","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T22:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3573"},"modified":"2011-09-18T18:23:23","modified_gmt":"2011-09-18T22:23:23","slug":"dvd-its-a-mad-mad-mad-mad-world-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3573","title":{"rendered":"DVD: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (1963)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>I<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: Very Good\/ DVD Extras: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label: MGM\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: September 18, 2001<\/p>\n

Genre: Comedy \/ Slapstick \/ Cinerama<\/p>\n

Synopsis: \u00a0Several teams of ordinary nutbars race to the West Coast in search of a buried loot.<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0Making-of documentary: “Something a Little Less Serious” (60 mins.) \/ Extended Scenes \/ Theatrical Trailer, 1970 reissue Trailer<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

In retrospect, it\u2019s actually hard to believe William Rose\u2019s concept of an epic homage to slapstick comedy managed to reach its end point, and become a three-hour Cinerama (er,\u00a0Ultra Panavision 70<\/a>) roadshow presentation \u2013 unheard of for a comedy at the time.<\/p>\n

Rose, an American screenwriter who\u2019d penned a string of classic British comedies (see end), had written two scripts for\u00a0Mad<\/strong> \u2013 one with dialogue, the other with \u2018bits of business\u2019 for the actors \u2013 which made its way to producer \/ director Stanley Kramer, an independent filmmaker best known for Message Pictures:\u00a0The Defiant Ones<\/strong> (racism is bad),\u00a0On the Beach<\/strong> (nuclear war is bad),Inherit the Wind <\/strong>(Darwinism is real, not truthy), and\u00a0Judgment at Nuremberg <\/strong>(Nazis and anti-Semitism is bad).<\/p>\n

Kramer, one suspects, needed something fun to make at this stage in his career, either for himself, and \/ or to show peers he did indeed have a sense of humour in spite of the serious contemporary issues he otherwise tackled in his movies. The decision to go Cinerama (using the super-wide Ultra Panavision camera) was pretty daring, considering no one had made a comedy on such a massive production and logistical scale.<\/p>\n

Rat Race<\/strong> (2001) and other \u2018race for the money\u2019 road movie variations owe a great deal to Kramer and Rose\u2019s vision, because it laid out a clean and simple template where an event (in this case, a thief\u2019s deadly car crash) brings together disparate travelers, after which they all go into a brutally competitive mode to reach a treasure (in this case, buried money from a heist). Once in a while there are allegiances, but they\u2019re fleeting, because greed is simply the great flaw that runs throughout each competitor, and easily infects even good, people, which in\u00a0Mad<\/strong>, is the chief detective (Spencer Tracy) assigned to wrangle everyone to jail, and retrieve the stolen money.<\/p>\n

Mad<\/strong>\u2019s story consists of multiple chase threads bonking into each other until a grand finale, followed by a closing gag that\u2019s simple, inelegant, and apropos to the tone of people bashing, smacking, slapping, slipping, crashing, inflaming, and conking each other or into things made of solid matter (including bone).<\/p>\n

According to the interviewed cast members in the doc in MGM\u2019s 2001 DVD (itself ported over from the 1991 laserdisc release), once word got around of which popular comedians had signed on, others wanted in, either through envy, jealousy, or a sense this would be a unique opportunity that could create something great.<\/p>\n

Boasting a massive cast (for main and cameo parts),\u00a0Mad<\/strong> is exhausting, indulgent, and bloated in its scope, and should\u2019ve been a mess, but Kramer revealed a surprising adeptness in coordinating every production element with military precision, and Rose\u2019s dual scripts were filled with fine comedic nuances drawn from classic gags.<\/p>\n

The production was also blessed with an amazing stunt crew who put on film some of the most startling one-shot stunts that today would\u2019ve been rendered in CGI due to safety reasons, or producer laziness.<\/p>\n

The high speed car chases are filled with near-misses,; a plane dodges a man dangling from a control tower, and later crashes through a populated set with moving rotors; and Ernest Laszlo\u2019s cinematography exploits the full breadth of the 2.20:1 widescreen ratio with plenty of intricate movements. In theatres, there\u2019s little doubt elaborate stunt and sight gags awed audiences.<\/p>\n

Ardent fans love every frame of the film, whereas others may find even the standard theatrical edit of 163 mins. to be heavy-going, but there are scenes which are pure brilliance, and there\u2019s that incredible cast of veteran comedians who shared a background in vaudeville and live television.<\/p>\n

To watch them interact and steal scenes from each other is part of the fun, not to mention the cameos that pop up in major scenes. Perhaps the best example of scene-stealing is Dick Shawn (The Producers<\/strong>) and Barrie Chase, respectively playing a loud-mouth beatnik and stone-faced dancer. The brief dancing scene at their jazzy pad is the apex of absurdity: one character (Shawn) is physically loose and gregarious, and the other (Chase) jiggles and angles like a robot, as if trying to experience human emotions through physical mimicry.<\/p>\n

The 1991 making-of doc was made at the time when many of the cast members were still alive, and they share wild stories of their eccentric personas, and the respect among each other, since they were all pretty much living legends at that time.<\/p>\n

Interviewed are Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Norman Fell, Jerry Lewis, composer Ernest Gold, director Kramer, plus a stuntman who recounts the exciting time such a massive army were recruited for a film.<\/p>\n

One reason\u00a0Mad<\/strong> works is the carefully choreographed intro scenes: a spectacular car crash causes strangers to hurry down and hear the last cryptic words of a dying crook (Jimmy Durante, who literally \u2018kicks the bucket\u2019); and a lengthy introduction amongst the strangers quickly introduces each main character, and their relationships with annoying mother-in-laws, stupid brother-in-laws, and bickering best friends.<\/p>\n

Milton Berle gives a lengthy, hysterical double-talk on share division based on a crazy point system, and Buddy Hacket repeatedly insults Ethel Merman, punctuating his hatred with a beautiful, harmonically descending \u2018drop dead\u2019 line that pretty much sets everyone running for their cars, and beginning their mad trek to the West Coast in search of \u2018the big W\u2019 under which the loot is buried.<\/p>\n

Kramer lets the scene run its natural length in one shot, Rose\u2019s argumentative prose just flows, and the long, widescreen take allows audiences to scan each character and read their confusion and annoyances as the issue of loot division becomes increasingly byzantine.<\/p>\n

As a wide film format experience, it probably felt numb in a panned & scanned transfer for TV and early home video, but in its proper widescreen format on DVD and Blu-ray, at least some of the film\u2019s impact is restored.<\/p>\n

According to film historian Robert H. Harris,\u00a0Mad<\/strong>\u2019s premiere roadshow length was 195 mins., after which it was cut down to 154 mins. (often referred to as the general release version).<\/p>\n

On DVD, the 163 mins. version is essentially boosted by the Intermission + Exit music, whereas the 1991 MGM\/UA\u00a0laserdisc <\/a>& VHS releases contained the two roadshow music additions, plus an Overture, and the interpolation of deleted footage culled from then-newly discovered trims.<\/p>\n

That effort to recreate the roadshow experience was rather misguided, because the footage was still unedited, and the final scene edit was a guesstimate of how it would\u2019ve flowed had the extra scenes been incorporated into the film by Kramer. The laserdisc set also included a montage of scene trims which were slapped together in random order, but even from that m\u00e9lange, it was easy to see why the incidental material was dropped.<\/p>\n

When MGM released the film on DVD in 2001, it was the 163 mins. version with the aforementioned Intermission & Exit music, plus the 1991 documentary and the trim montage. The film was reissued again in 2003,\u00a0minus<\/em> the extras, because MGM figured they could cuts costs and cater a more budget-friendly DVD towards discount bin buyers in drug stores and Wal-Marts.<\/p>\n

The\u00a02011 Blu-ray<\/a> features a new HD transfer of the 163 mins. version (again, missing the Overture music, which is frankly stupid), and reintegrates the documentary & trim montage from the prior releases. The BR debuted as another Wal-Mart exclusive, but it will eventually make its way towards the rest of humanity. The HD transfer is reportedly stunning, but even the first DVD edition looks very lovely, given the film was originally shot in 65mm, with gorgeous colours and deep focus.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a02002 interview<\/a>, Harris discussed the prospects of restoring\u00a0Mad<\/strong> as close as possible to its roadshow length. As of 2010, Harris commented in the Home Theater Forum that preservation had be completed on the\u00a06-track audio<\/a> for the general release version, but additional funds were still required to move further into picture restoration.<\/p>\n

Given the film\u2019s stature, fan base, and uniqueness in being the first single-lens \/ single-print Cinerama film, it deserves to be restored. More importantly, newly struck 70mm roadshow film prints (in straight and Cinerama versions) would further ensure the theatrical experience would endure for future generations in both 70mm and surviving Cinerama theatres.<\/p>\n

Time and indifference, as Ron Epstein\u2019s tribute page infers, is a terrible threat towards film history. Just scoot down to the\u00a0page\u2019s first third<\/a>, and imagine America\u2019s film heritage disintegrating like the photographed film reel.<\/p>\n

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Postscript<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kramer and Rose would collaborate again in 1967 on the mixed marriage drama\u00a0Guess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner?<\/strong> in 1969 on\u00a0The Secret of Santa Vittoria<\/strong>, with Rose credited as co-writer.Vittoria<\/strong> would be Rose\u2019s final script, after penning several classic British comedies, including\u00a0Genevieve<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1953),\u00a0The Maggie<\/strong> (1954),\u00a0The Ladykillers<\/strong> (1955), and\u00a0The Smallest Show On Earth<\/a> <\/strong>(1957).<\/p>\n

His American work includes\u00a0The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!<\/strong> (1966) and\u00a0The Flim-Flam Man<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1967), and in 1960 he wrote the script for Michael Todd, Jr.\u2019s 70mm Smell-O-Vision travelogue blunder\u00a0Scent of Myster<\/strong> (1960), which at least must have given the writer a command of sketching comedic scenes for the broad 70mm canvas.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0I<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ I . Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: Very Good\/ DVD Extras: Very Good Label: MGM\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: September 18, 2001 Genre: Comedy \/ Slapstick \/ Cinerama Synopsis: \u00a0Several teams of ordinary nutbars race to the West Coast in search of a buried loot. Special Features: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[510,741,740,739,735],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-VD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3573"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3578,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3573\/revisions\/3578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}