It is noisy. It is three hours long. It features a guy literally kicking a bucket. Honestly, by all logic of modern cinema, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World should be a dated, unwatchable relic of 1963. Yet, here we are, decades later, and people are still obsessed with the "Big W."
When Stanley Kramer—a guy famous for making super serious dramas about Nazis and racism—decided he wanted to make the "comedy to end all comedies," the industry thought he’d lost his mind. He basically wanted to cram every funny person alive into a single movie. We’re talking Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, and even Buster Keaton. It was an ego-fest of legendary proportions, shot in Ultra Panavision 70, which is a fancy way of saying it was wider than your living room.
The Chaos Behind the Scenes of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
You've probably heard the rumors about how difficult this shoot was. They aren't just rumors. Filming in the California desert in 1962 was a special kind of hell. Imagine being Jonathan Winters, stuck in a chair, completely bound in thick tape for the gas station scene. The crew went to lunch. They forgot him. He sat there for hours, unable to move his arms, just stewing in the heat.
Then there’s the tragedy of Ernie Kovacs. His widow, Edie Adams, almost didn't take the role of Monica because Ernie had just died in a car accident. Kramer eventually convinced her to do it, which is sort of a miracle considering the movie starts with... a car accident.
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- The Budget: $9.4 million (which was huge back then).
- The Earnings: Roughly $60 million worldwide.
- The Aspect Ratio: 2.76:1 (basically a panoramic photo).
The movie didn't just have stars; it had cameos that were blink-and-you-miss-it. The Three Stooges show up as firemen for about five seconds. Jack Benny pulls up in a car, says two words, and leaves. It’s the ultimate "where's Waldo" of 1960s comedy.
What People Get Wrong About the Plot
Basically, everyone thinks this is just a fun road trip movie. It’s not. If you actually watch it—I mean, really watch it—it’s kind of a horror story about greed. These people start out as regular-ish citizens. By the end, they are destroying gas stations, stealing planes, and screaming at their mothers-in-law.
The "Big W" wasn't even a real landmark. It was four palm trees planted at a private residence in Rancho Palos Verdes. Fans used to trespass there so often that the owners eventually had to deal with the trees. Today, the landscape has been bulldozed. There’s almost nothing left of the original site, which feels like a fittingly cynical ending to a movie about people chasing something that doesn't belong to them.
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Why the Tech Was a Big Deal
The movie was a pioneer for the "Roadshow" release. You didn't just walk into a theater; you bought a ticket for a specific time, got a program, and sat through an intermission. It was an event.
Shooting in Ultra Panavision 70 was a nightmare for the actors because the lenses were so wide they could see everything. If you were standing off to the side trying to pick your nose, you were in the shot. This format was later resurrected by Quentin Tarantino for The Hateful Eight, mostly because he wanted that same epic, overwhelming feeling that Kramer captured.
The Missing 40 Minutes
When the movie first premiered at the Cinerama Dome, it was about 192 minutes long. United Artists panicked. They thought it was too long for general audiences to sit through without needing a catheter. They hacked it down to 163 minutes, and then even further for television. For decades, those missing scenes were like the Holy Grail for film nerds.
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Criterion eventually released a restored version, but even then, some of the footage was lost forever. They had to use still photos and police radio audio to fill in the gaps. It’s a bit janky, but it gives you a glimpse into the even "madder" version Kramer originally intended.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Viewer
If you're going to dive into this beast, don't just put it on in the background while you fold laundry. You'll miss the best parts.
- Watch the background. Half the jokes happen in the corners of the frame.
- Look for the stuntmen. Carey Loftin and his team did things in 1963 that would be CGI today. That plane flying through the billboard? That was real.
- Notice the score. Ernest Gold’s music is literally a character in the film, shifting styles to match each group of treasure hunters.
- Embrace the intermission. If you’re watching the long cut, actually take the break. It helps the pacing of the third act, which gets pretty dark.
The legacy of the film lives on in stuff like Rat Race, but nothing captures the sheer, unadulterated mania of the original. It’s a snapshot of an era when Hollywood wasn't afraid to be "too much."
To truly appreciate the scale of it's a mad mad mad mad world movie, try to find a screening in 70mm if a local revival theater runs one. Seeing those desert vistas on a massive screen makes the characters' descent into madness feel much more earned. If you're stuck at home, the Criterion Collection Blu-ray is the only way to go for the full context of what was cut and why.