The Fever Film Club #1
It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
100 Movies You Should See Before We All Die
“In this vast and troubled world, we sometimes lose our way.
But I am never lost.
I feel this way because…”
…I watch movies.
This club convenes remotely as a public service while social distancing.
The other day, suffering from contact with the deadly virus of cable TV news, I began sneezing uncontrollably and dry-coughing. I imagined I was having trouble breathing. I was in full panic, a pathetic mess. I called my wife, who is in good health, and in self-imposed quarantine of social distancing in Brooklyn, NY. I’ve been social distancing for some years in Niantic, CT, taking care of my elderly mother, and in The Pandemic I have no hope of a much-needed visit with my family and friends in NYC. For all I know, at the time of this writing, National Guardsmen have already closed I-95 to prevent panicking lunatics like me from travelling south.
My wife told me what every dumb cluck already knows: “Stop watching TV news.” I did, and I switched channels to Turner Classic Movies, since watching virulent cable TV news and watching movies is practically all I ever do when I’m not feeding or medicating my mother. The range of emotions generated after I changed the channel was mixed, but ultimately calming. Ready for bed at 1 AM, I saw that TCM was beginning a broadcast of Stanley Kramer’s all-star epic comedy It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World. I realized that if I watched it, I wouldn’t get to sleep until after 4 AM, and that getting up in the morning to care for my mother would be more-than-normally excruciating. (I joke, of course. Although easily befuddled, my mom is very sweet, and there is no place I’d rather be than right here with you, Mom.) The choice to stay up was not a difficult one. Even though I own a DVD, and have seen it countless times, it’s one of those movies I watch every time I come across it. Like Lawrence Of Arabia, or Gus Van Sant’s masterful 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, especially noted for Vince Vaughn’s remarkable impersonation of Anthony Perkins.
Within moments of the start of the film, every trace of anxiety disappeared, replaced by delight.
The idea that Stanley Kramer, prime exemplar of the “social problem” director, who gave us The Defiant Ones, On The Beach, Inherit The Wind, Judgment At Nuremberg, A Child Is Waiting and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, would attempt to direct the slapstick movie to end all slapstick movies — and succeed magnificently — is evidence that the motion picture industry serves a valuable and humane purpose, despite being a catch-all for many of the worst human beings I’ve had the misfortune to encounter in my lifetime. And some of my best friends are motion picture professionals.
The idea of the film is a madcap race, and the excellence of each successive sequence of disaster and frustration is punctuated with cameo appearances by a vast array of popular entertainers whose careers span the first sixty years of 20th Century American mass entertainment: stage, Vaudeville, Burlesque, screen, radio and television.
A quick check of the internet confirmed that there are at least some people who think even small children today would find this movie hilarious. Watching it in isolation, as I just did, this ancient fellow wondered whether it could possibly appeal to people unfamiliar with popular television entertainment of the early 1960s, but evidently it finds new audiences all the time. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t keep putting it on TV and selling DVDs.
I saw It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World in November, 1963, when I was a month shy of my 8th birthday. I had just experienced the signature trauma of my childhood: JFK’s assassination. (About which Bob Dylan has recently chosen to confuse me more than I’ve been confused in years, with his latest release, “Murder Most Foul.” Please let me know if you figure that one out.) At the time, I was familiar with many of the long list of cast members. Consider the opening sequence: I knew Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, Ethel Merman, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, and Dorothy Provine. I couldn’t have known Sid Caesar. I probably recognized Edie Adams from her Muriel Cigars TV commercials. I don’t remember whether I knew Buddy Hackett; I had not yet seen The Music Man, and it was at least a decade before he began his record-breaking series of appearances on Carson, thought to be among the greatest moments in television.
Although it’s clear that anyone with a proper sense of humor would love this movie, it did occur to me that much of my repeated enjoyment is grounded in nostalgia. How much of what I love about the movie has to do with the fact that in 1963 I knew Jim Backus, not as James Dean’s father in Rebel Without A Cause, but as Joan Davis’s husband in the 1950s TV sitcom I Married Joan, and as the voice of Mr. Magoo? Jim Backus’ drunken pilot in It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, refusing to fly an airplane with novices Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett, is a classic comic character. Every time I watch Rebel Without A Cause I wait for that moment when James Dean, to amuse Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, imitates his father’s (Backus’) voice, which by 1955 was instantly recognizable as the voice of Mr. Magoo. What portion of the audience of that movie would know that today? What difference does it make to MMMMW?
Of course, this is nothing more than solipsistic Boomer preoccupation, and has nothing to do with anything, although frankly, while I’m on the subject, I might as well mention that the present hostility towards my generation wounds me. Makes me feel defensive. There we were, minding our own business, taking every conceivable drug that wasn’t nailed down, convinced that we were saving the world, and now wouldn’t you know it? The End of the World is here, despite our valiant efforts. Well, I refuse to take responsibility. People my age have a special understanding of things like the cultural significance of early ’60s re-runs of ’50s TV sitcoms. And if you don’t like it, that’s very ungenerous.
So please ignore the bitterness of someone who thinks everything that happened before 1979 is just better (which by the way, it just is). That’s not important. This is a funny movie and it could very well take your mind off The Pandemic, as it did for me. It will also treat you to the genuine talents of some of the most gifted performers ever to step in front of a camera, and you won’t care if you’ve never heard of them or seen them before. Ethel Merman at the height of her powers is the ultimate harridan. Phil Silvers in Sgt Bilko mode keeps the rest of the cast on their toes. Eddie “Rochester” Anderson and Peter Falk, on equal footing (rare for an interracial duo in 1963), provide transportation. William Demarest is suitably cranky. Mike Mazurki is suitably large. Don Knotts is suitably nervous. Jerry Lewis is a jerk. Jack Benny offers to help. Zasu Pitts answers the phone. Terry-Thomas has his best role in an American movie. Joe E. Brown yells. The Three Stooges just stand there. The late, lamented Dick Shawn gives his funniest performance, better than L.S.D. in Mel Brooks’ The Producers. And then there’s that big baby Jonathan Winters. The way he goes after Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan at the gas station is worth every second you spend watching this movie. Of course, there’s Stanley Kramer’s go-to guy, who some say was the best actor in Hollywood history, Spencer Tracy.
Buster Keaton’s part was cut down to a cameo of less than a minute, sadly but for good reason (it gave away a key plot point too early), and you barely see his face, but just looking at the way he moves in and out of the morass of a car chase, trying to direct traffic as the climax of the movie approaches; he looks just like he did in Steamboat Bill, Jr. 35 years earlier. A glimpse of actual comic genius. Actual, honest-to-goodness movie genius.
Watching this movie on a small laptop computer is disrespectful to cinema. Phones are out of the question. Hyperlinks appear below.
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How to watch the movie:
justwatch.com Stream, Rent, Buy, all the platforms, watch here, watch now
youtube Premium rent or purchase for the online viewer
criterion The Ultimate Blu-ray for the completist; complete restoration
criterion The Restored Special Edition DVD for the normal viewer
Find out about the movie:
IMDB
Wikipedia
Watch favorite scenes:
youtube Jimmy Durante kicks the bucket
youtube Every Man For Himself
youtube Jonathan Winters destroys the gas station
youtube Jim Backus flies, literally and figuratively
youtube Ethel Merman tries to reason with Dick Shawn
youtube Preoccupation with bosoms: Terry-Thomas, Milton Berle
Find out about the Director, Stanley Kramer:
IMDB
Wikipedia
Find out about Buddy Hackett on Carson:
youtube
Find out about Edie Adams for Muriel Cigars:
youtube
Watch the genius Buster Keaton in Steamboat Bill, Jr. but not on your phone:
youtube
Find out about Bob Dylan’s new song, “Murder Most Foul”:
Rolling Stone Magazine
Find out about the proprietor of The Fever Film Club:
IMDB
The New Press
Vimeo
Facebook
Special thanks to Colin Robinson, Teddy Ostrow, and Lucky McKee
Look for Fever Film Club #9
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Read Fever Film Club #8, guest contributor Tom Prassis
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