The film It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World written by William Rose and Tonia Rose and directed by Stanley Kramer was released November 7, 1963. The film stars Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Spencer Tracy, and Ethel Merman. The production budget for the film was $9.4 million dollars (Mojo, 2016). The total lifetime domestic gross for this G rated movie distribute by MGM was $46,332,858 (Mojo, 2016).
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World is a comedy based on the race to find hidden treasure. In the case of this movie the treasure happens to be the stash left behind by ex-con Smiler Grogan. Smiler looses control of his car and drives off a cliff in southern California. A group of motorists stop and while dying Smiler gives them the location of where he hid his loot. The motorists are not willing to dive up the loot equally so the race is on to find the stash before anyone else with knowledge of its location finds it. In the end the money is found but is taken by a crooked cop before the group realizes they were just duped. This is not the end of the story though. The money is lost when it drops from the top of a building to a group of onlooking citizens when dirty cop, Captain C.G. Culpepper is cornered by the group. While being helped off the building by the fire department the group of men fall from the ladder and end up in the prison hospital awaiting their fates.
The reviews from Rotten Tomatoes came in at 6.8 out of 10 (Rotten Tomatoes, 2016). It seems that only 32 Rotten Tomatoes critics rated the movie Of these 32 critic reviews 24 gave the film a Fresh Tomato rating while the remaining eight gave the film a Rotten Tomato rating. When looking at the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes I found the following reviews from three of the their top critics. From a review published November 19, 1963, Bosley Crwowther had this to say, “So many excellent actors and stunt men do so much in this film that it is beyond my space allowance to begin to credit them” (Rotten Tomatoes, 2016). Crowther seems to have liked the film. Another review comes from The Variety Staff and is as follows, “The comic competition is so keen that it is impossible to single out any one participant as outstanding” (Rotten Tomatoes, 2016). This time the review is from November 7, 2007 and is very similar to Crowther’s evaluation of the film and its star studded cast. Lastly, I found the following negative review from Rotten Tomatoes top critic Don Druker from the Chicago Reader, “Stanley Kramer strikes out again with this elephantine 1963 attempt at uproarious comedy” (Rotten Tomatoes, 2016). While the number of top critics is very small, you can get somewhat of a sense that the film is lacking in some ways. It is also important to point out the length of the film is a little over three hours and to most that is certainly too long. A movie such as this could have easily been done in less than two hours.
I was somewhat surprised that this film did not garner greater critical success. Not because the film was in any way a great film in my opinion but because of the star power of the movie. We aren’t talking one or two stars but seven if you consider the names listed above as stars. I believe a movie and its success is given credibility when it has such a cast of characters. Likewise, some films aren’t as successful when not drawing on the star quality.
Works Cited
“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) - Box Office Mojo." Hamlet 2 (2008) - Box Office Mojo. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.
“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) - Rotten Tomatoes.” Hamlet 2 (2008) - Rotten Tomatoes, Web. 19 Mar, 2016.
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