ITS A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

US, 1963, 181 minutes, Colour.
Spencer Tracy, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shaun, Phil Silvers, Terry- Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Dorothy Provine, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, Jim Backus, Ben Blue, Joe E. Brown, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Norman Fell, Paul Ford, Stan Freberg, Leo Gorcey, Sterling Holloway, Edward Everett Horton, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Mike Mazurki, Charles Mc Graw, Zasu Pitts, Carl Reiner, Madlyn Rhue, Roy Roberts, The Three Stooges, Jesse White, Jimmy Durante and, uncredited, Jack Benny, Howard Da Silva, Jerry Lewis.
Directed by Stanley Kramer.

It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World was mad in Cinerama – a big film, a long film, perhaps one might say a film overstuffed with comic actors, each trying to outdo the other to steal the show as well as steal the money that they are all searching for.

The film was rather American and garish and loud in style, which meant a certain limited appeal beyond the American shores. However, for anyone who wants big, biggest screen slapstick, this obviously is the film. It was written by William Rose, an American who worked in England in the 50s with such films as The Maggie, Genevieve and The Ladykillers. On his return to the United States he also wrote Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. The film was directed by producer Stanley Kramer who had made a big impact in the early 50s taking on difficult films like Champion, The Men, Death of a Salesman. He moved into directing himself in the mid-50s, going into bigger productions like Not as a Stranger and The Pride and the Passion. He was also interested in social themes like The Defiant Ones, On the Beach and Inherit the Wind. During the 1960s he made only a few films but they were big budget, big films: Judgment at Nuremberg, Mad World, Ship of Fools, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Secret of Santa Victoria. His films during the 1970s were smaller, Bless the Beasts and Children, Oklahoma Crude, The Domino Principle and his final film was The Runner Stumbles.

This film has been imitated many times since with such smaller-focus greed films as Scavenger Hunt and The Rat Race.

1. What was the overall audience response to this film? The total Impact of the comedy and the slapstick, to the scope and vastness of the film, to the wide screen colour, to the collection of comedians in comic situations, to the themes of comedy and to the comment on human behaviour?

2. How successful a film was this as a compendium of twentieth century American humour? which are the best aspects of American humour? The personalities of American comedians, their styles, situations and dialogue? Was the film a glorifying of American comedy? Were there any undertones in the presentation of the comedy?

3. The impact of the title and its meaning? The emphases on a mad world? Is this a good thing? How much irony? The emphasis on ‘you gotta laugh’ at the end of the film? How optimistic was the film, about laughing and human behaviour? How pessimistic about human behaviour? How ugly was the mad world presented? How ugly is modern America? That is the quality of the laughter at modern America? The greed in the mad world - madness equated with greediness?

4. What were the best aspects of the comedy? which farcical situations were successful? Which were the best slapstick situations? Did the film exaggerate these too much on an enormous screen, with enormous financial resources and everything big? Which were the most successful satirical parts of the film? Were the targets of the satire clear? Even the satire on the central character? Spencer Tracey as Culpeper? Even Spencer Tracey as greedy as everyone else? The greed underneath respectability etc? How much was this satirized? How tellingly?

5. Comment on the technical effectiveness of the widescreen, the colour, the use of spectacles the use of machinery etc?

6. Comment on the structure of the film, the opening death, the goal and the quest, the gathering momentum, the chase devices, the intercutting of the chases the culmination and the slapstick grand finale? Was this effective cinema-comedy?

7. In what taste was the humour of the film? Critics comment on the death of Smiler and his kicking the bucket as indicating the bad taste of the film? Ethel Merman’s performance as the strident mother, her son as a whingeing kind of Mummy's boy etc?

8. What was the nature of the quest? The substition , greediness for the goal of the quest? How normal were these people how normal was their greediness the exaggerated ways in which they showed their greed trampling over one another?

9. Comment on the importance of cars and planes and other means of transport for the mad modern world. How well were they used in the theme of the film?

10. Consider the principal characters, their main traits, their weaknesses, their greed: Finch, Mrs Marcus and her dominance, Sylvester coming to the rescue? Benjy and Dingbell? And their stupidity? Melville Crump and his stupidity also, accompanied by Monica? The English Hawthorn and Terry Thomas' style? Phil Silvers and his greediness, Otto Meyer? Jonathan Winters as the determined truck driver, Pike? How distinctive were all of these characters? How attractive and repellent? How was Dorothy Provine the only attractive character? Was she the only person in the film without greed?

11. Comment on the introduction of incidental comedians and the quality of their appearance eg, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis…?

12. How important was the character of Culpepper? Dedicating his life to combat crime as police chief? His following the chase? His final betrayal? The motivation for his greed? His tricking those gathering the money?

13. The frantic nature of the search in the park and one following the other?

14. How significant was it that Emmeline was the one who saw where the money was and she was not greedy? Was there any point being made here?

15. How successful was the final chase the final climax on the fire-ladders and in the buildings? Was this a fitting culmination to this film?

16. How humorous was the ending, people injured, people laughing, the sour nature of the final laugh at Mrs Marcus and the banana skin? How sour and pessimistic was this final laugh?

17. How important a film was this as a comedy of the 60s? Showing the extent and limitations of slapstick and comedy? As a picture of modern America a bitter picture? The comedy incorporating death, destruction, crashing, beatings, blackmail, greed?