Review of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) by Johnny T — 21 Mar 2013

This comic extravaganza starts off funny, but exhausts rather than delights. Designed to be the biggest, most lavish comedy ever made, IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD is a coarse, star-studded pageant of Keystone Kops-style slapstick. 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. Originally filmed in Ultra Panavision for showing in Cinerama (subsequent prints were cut to 154 minutes), Kramer's 'comedy to end all comedy' stretches its material to snapping point but offers happy hours of star-spotting (everyone has a cameo, from Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante and Jim Backus to Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis and the Three Stooges). The comic competition is so keen that it is impossible to single out any one participant as outstanding. Spencer Tracy, Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney and host of good-old-fashioned-comedy chums cram in the action, but miss the laughs in this frantic bank caper comedy.

VERDICT: "High-Quality Stuff" - [Positive Reaction] This is a rating to a movie I view as very entertaining and well made, and definitely worth paying the full price at a theatre to see or own on DVD. It is not perfect, but it is definitely excellent. (Films that are rated 3.5 or 4 stars).