Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Cafe Society
1

I had nothing better to do with my life this weekend than to watch Its a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World. Somehow I sat through nearly 3 1/2 hours of scenery-chewing and bad acting to catch my favourite ~10 mins of pure comedy gold.

Its always been known as an all-star American comedic line-up, and I had real trouble finding anyone at all who I didn’t recognise as a celebrity / comedian / name actor. Have there been any other movies deliberately designed to get such a large number of big names onto screen?

2

There were the ‘star-studded’ disaster epics of the '70s - Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, the Airport franchise.

3

Of course there was scenery chewing! The whole point of the movie was scenery chewing! It was a slapstick comedy! You were expecting a thoughtful everyman slice of life experience?

And no, there hasn’t been a recent movie to compare as far as casting goes. No studio has that kind of cash.

4

The Player, obviously.

5

Movie 43.

A lot of the Muppet Movies will often have a large amount of cameos.

6

But which bit is your “favourite ~10 mins of pure comedy gold”?

7

I’m not the OP, but I would assume the ending where everyone is searching for the treasure. All the characters in the same park, at the same time, all meeting up with each other in various ways before someone finally figures it out, which then prompts a part where all the other characters chase one character around for awhile.
Personally, though (as that is one of my favorite movies), my opinion on the best part of that movie is the ten minutes or so right before part one ends. Seen here is five minutes of it, but it’s actually a little longer than that/starts a few minutes before where this one picks up. It could be that part the OP means, but it wouldn’t require one to sit through three and a half hours to get to it.

8

How the West was Won?

IAMMMMW is one of the CLASSIC comedies I subjected my young kids to - much to their boredom and my amazement that it was nowhere near as hilarious as I remembered. I recall another was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To the Forum.

And - Apologies Uke Ike - I just tried to rewatch A Night at the Opera last weekend. Remind me again which were the funny parts? :dubious: I would’ve sworn myself to be a HUGE Marx Bros fan, but when I rewatch, I just don’t see it. Perhaps the initial watching is qualitatively different than once you know every joke.

9

Clearly it’s a very subjective thing, but the bits I held out for were:

  • Dick Shawn and girlfriend go-go dancing

  • Jonathan Winters destroying the roadside garage

  • Dick Shawn again (slight man-crush here) driving and crying ‘I’m coming to save you mama, that’s why you had me’ and later car duel with Terry Thomas and Milton Berle.

  • I agree with Idle Thoughts about the last scene where most of the cast comes back together

  • Phil Silvers trying to cross the river in his convertible.

I also enjoyed Spencer Tracy’s transformation from a good cop much more this time around.

10

In addition to the 70s disaster flicks, you had the big-screen, big-budget war movies: The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, The Great Escape, etc.

11

Can I just add one more? It truly is a bit, not a scene: Jonathan Winters in his truck as he realizes everyone else is speeding up after they leave the crash site and they’ve all decided to make a run for the money. . . he gets this grim, determined face and says, “Ah, trying to leave the big boy behind, eh?”

I absolutely lose it.

12

I love the Dick Shawn (and his bored/dancing girlfriend) bits too.

Another great thing about the movie are the southern California locations, from the opening on the Palms to Pines highway to the Big W* in Palos Verdes, it’s a wonderful time capsule of the “way it used to be”. Along with that are all the cars of the era…it’s funny to see how badly those things handled.

*sadly, all that’s left of the Big W is a single stump sticking out of the ground

13

“What could happen to an Old Fashioned?”

Jim Backus and Buddy Hackett are great, Andy Rooney is annoying, and whoever was actually flying that Twin Beech was amazing.

For a movie with such a huge cast, how many of them are still alive? I started clicking around on IMDb and the only ones I found were Carl Reiner and Jerry Lewis, and potentially Bob Mazurki.

14

The Great Race has a cast full of familiar faces, though only the leads were what you would call 1st tier stars.
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines has a great cast, but I never found it particularly funny.
Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopieshad a slightly weaker cast and was even less funny.
Around the World in 80 Days was the very definition of star-studded, but there is little reason to watch it other than seeing all those stars from yesteryear together in one not quite mediocre movie.

I can’t think of a movie of the star-studded extravaganza type that I would consider a really good movie. The comedies aren’t all that funny and the 70s disaster movies are more about the special effects than the characters.

15

My kids loved it. We still sing “Doubleyewww…” to each other when something amazing happens.

P.S. - How the F do you spell W?

16

**Mickey **Rooney. The guy who was in all those “Let’s put on a show!” movies with Judy Garland.

Andy Rooney was the geezer who did those witty commentaries at the end of each episode of 60 Minutes.

17

Boy, talk about aging changing one’s tastes. I loved this movie when I was younger, but watching that was nearly painful.

Though I always hated the ending with the cheesy animated fire truck. I know they wouldn’t let a movie end with everyone getting away with it, but I hated from the beginning that the women were seemingly not under arrest and went to the hospital to berate the men for their foolishness event though they were just as guity. It’s too much like the end of a bad Flintstones episode. Men are incompetent, and women are cool and rational.

18

Neither one was very funny.

19

Murder by Death - not a huge cast, but nearly all well known names.

Written by Neil Simon
Starring
Eileen Brennan
Truman Capote
James Coco
Peter Falk
Alec Guinness
Elsa Lanchester
David Niven
Peter Sellers
Maggie Smith
Nancy Walker
Estelle Winwood

Richard Narita - only non-big name at the time
The screaming doorbell is even Fay Wray from an archive.

20

Hollywood Canteen. Everybody on the Warner’s lot puts on a show for GIs.

The Story of Mankind takes the record, I think. 50 or 100 stars of various magnitudes play roles to illustrate history. Almost mesmerizingly awful.