Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

Editor's Note This wacky comedy classic directed by Stanley Kramer features one of the largest collections of American comedians ever brought together on celluloid, resulting in the kind of far-out comic gem that only the 1960s could dish out. Filled with sharp one-liners, plenty of pratfalls and double takes, and unstoppable slapstick humor, this film never stops entertaining. The laughs come mostly from vehicle accidents of all kinds: car crashes, bike accidents, airplane failures, and almost everything else imaginable. But a good amount of humor is also lent to major wrestling matches, terrible mix-ups and misunderstandings, and increasingly absurd personalities such as Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman), the screeching and impossible mother-in-law. The film even laughs at itself, showing its flimsy cardboard sets as characters punch out walls or accidentally explode whole boxes of dynamite. The cast includes such favorites as Jonathan Winters, Phil Silvers, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, Sid Caesar, Spencer Tracey, Terry-Thomas, and Dick Shawn, among countless others. Brilliantly simple, the plot concerns a caravan of motorists who witness a terrible accident on a dangerously windy California highway. The auto-crash victim (Jimmy Durante) reveals in his dying words that he has hidden a fortune of stolen cash, sending the drivers on a rambunctious race to see who can claim the loot first!

	Sid Caesar
	ZaSu Pitts
	Edward Everett Horton
	Phil Silvers
	Ethel Merman
	Spencer Tracy
	Buster Keaton
	Dorothy Provine
	Dick Shawn
	Peter Falk
	Terry-Thomas
	Jimmy Durante
	Jonathan Winters
	William Demarest
	Buddy Hackett
	Carl Reiner
	Mickey Rooney
	Leo Gorcey
	Paul Ford
	Milton Berle
	Sterling Holloway
	Danny Lee - Special Effects
	Frederic Knudtson - Editor
	Gene Fowler Jr. - Editor
	Robert C. Jones - Editor
	Ernest Laszlo - Director of Photography
	Gordon Gurnell - Art Director
	Stanley Kramer - Producer
	William Rose - Screenwriter
	Tania Rose - Screenwriter
	Ernest Gold - Composer
	Jerry Lewis - Cameo
	The Three Stooges - Cameo
	Stanley Kramer - Director

USA Today
"...[An] all-star epic....The film is also one of the zippiest of its length ever made..." 09/21/2001 p.5E