It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) or, It's a Loud, Loud, Loud and Long Movie

12/24/2024

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) or, It's a Loud, Loud, Loud and Long Movie

♥♥

A crazed mass of individuals crawl around a globe, all after a bag of money, on this cartoon-style poster for Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

An aging gentleman drives off a cliff and during his dying moments confesses to those surrounding him that a fortune is buried in a California park. - But who will get to the treasure first?

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is written by husband and wife writing team Tania Rose and William Rose (Touch and Go (1955), both) and produced and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker Stanley Kramer (Not As a Stranger (1955)).

This enormous 1960s creation is a - by some - beloved phenomenon. It is very long and consists mainly of crosscut scenes of characters who hectically, exaggeratedly, voluminously and foolishly yell and scream at one another. - That gets old, star parade or not, and that makes It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World not a little exhausting to watch. Every one is more or less playing a screaming boob here.

But the film also has handsome high-speed car scenes and stunts as well as a big, wacky and undeniably funny finishing set piece featuring a fire escape. - As well as elegant photography (by Ernest Laszlo (Judgment at Nuremberg (1961))). It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a matter of taste.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 9.4 mil. $

Box office: 60 mil. $

= Huge hit (returned 6.38 times its cost)

[It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World premiered 7 November (Los Angeles + Canada) and runs 192 (original release/162 minutes general release version/202 minutes restored director's cut version). Shooting took place from April - December 1962 in Florida and California, including in Los Angeles and San Diego. The film became the 3rd highest-grossing of the year, raking in 46.3 mil. $ (77.2 % of the total gross) in North America. The foreign numbers are not made public. The film was nominated for 6 Oscars, winning for Best Sound Effects. It lost Best Cinematography - Color to Leon Shamroy for Cleopatra, Editing to How the West Was Won, Song (Ernest Gold and Mack Davis for the title song) to Call Me Irresponsible from Papa's Delicate Condition, Score - Substantially Original (Ernest Gold) to John Addison for Tom Jones and Sound to How the West Was Won. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, among other honors. Kramer returned with Ship of Fools (1965). Spencer Tracey (Broken Lance (1954)) returned in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Milton Berle (Burke's Law (1994, TV-series)) in 5 TV credits prior to his theatrical return in The Loved Ones (1965); and Sid Caesar (Christmas Snow (1986, TV movie)) in The Mouse That Roared (1966, TV movie) and theatrically in The Busy Body (1967). It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is fresh at 69 % with a 6.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

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12/24/2024

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) or, It's a Loud, Loud, Loud and Long Movie

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