Admittedly, it might not be the best movie ever made - some maintain that it's not even the funniest one (Bite their tongues!) - but "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" is one of my favorite films. Please bear in mind that this is coming from someone who is not a big movie-goer or -watcher.
It is one of the first films I had ever seen, probably even the first. Since I was so young at the time - five years old or so - I don't have a clear recollection of the event, or even who was with me - just my Dad, or possibly Mom, Dad, and my younger sister. And only one scene sticks in my mind from that day, the one in which Ethel Merman's character, Mrs. Marcus, sits down on one of Lieutenant Hawthorne's cacti - specifically because I'm 99% sure that for some reason that's when we walked into the theater, I guess about fifteen or twenty minutes into the picture. And, if my failing memory serves me correctly, we stayed to the next showing and exited at that same point.
In any case, even if that original viewing didn't have a big impression on me its occasional television airings starting in the '70s and my viewings from tape did. (Sometime in the 1980s the movie became available on videocassette. It was supposedly the edited version which had been broadcast over the years. In 1991, a two-tape letter-boxed version hit the market, containing some twenty minutes of "lost" footage and a tribute video - MGM/UA Home Video M302193. A soundtrack CD was released in 1997 on the Rykodisc label - RCD 10704. And, most recently, on September 18, 2001 the public saw the appearance of a DVD version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Also, I might add, I've seen a laserdisc version of the movie mentioned at several websites.)
I have desperately tried to find a definitive website devoted to this film but have repeatedly come up empty. Most of what the search engines provide are sites for purchasing copies of the film; the other sites, for the most part, touch upon "M4W" just briefly, sometimes only tangentially in discussion of another topic entirely.
So with that said, I've gathered here my own thoughts about it, as well as various worthy tidbits about it from several other websites. (Nobody has ever accused me of being totally original.) Those sources are indicated appropriately. I don't expect that this page will be considered the definitive site of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," but it might be as close as any one ever comes to that distinction. (Besides, I'm not sure that I'd be comfortable with the responsibility of wearing such a mantle.)
For starters, here's a line from the movie's theme song:
"The only thing you are sure of is that nothing is sure."
I like the fact that it is logically self-contradictory. I'll bet that you won't find that observation - on the Net or anywhere else, for that matter - for all it's worth.
Here are some other examples of self-contradictory statements:
Where is the Big W, you might ask?
According to this site it's in a private park, Portuguese Point, on the Rancho Palos Verdes coastline, southwest of Los Angeles.
Some of my favorite lines:
Want to watch a trailer for "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" - actually just a bunch of short clips strung together? Check out this site. By the way, it requires Microsoft's Windows Media Player.
Impossible as it is to believe, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" contained several bloopers. I didn't realize this until I started checking websites with references to the movie. Rather than repeat them on this page, here are links to those sites:
Here's an unusual site. Billed as a posthumous reunion of some of the major players in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," it gives a capsule biography of each, and allows you to view a photo of each one's gravestone (if available). Check it out.
An episode of "The Simpsons," entitled "Homer the Vigilante," which was originally broadcast on January 6, 1994, contained numerous references to "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Here are two websites which list various facts and remarks about that episode. (It appears that both pages contain the same content. Just in case they're not, I offer links to each.)
For whatever reason I have never seen this episode in syndication. (That doesn't mean that it's never shown, just that I have never caught it.) So I have to go to my "archives" to watch it. (Fortunately, as a Simpsons fan I had the good fortune to have taped it when it was originally broadcast.) Even though the M4W-related stuff is only a few minutes at the end of the show, it hits the mark in true Simpsons style.
I remember an episode of "Remington Steele" which featured at least one scene at the site of the Big W and which contained references to "M4W." From what I've discovered, it was titled "Steele Among the Living," and it originally aired on February 25, 1983 - in the show's first season. Here are several sites which confirm this:
In the process of searching for that episode, I discovered that another one referenced "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World": "Steele in the Chips," which first aired on March 19, 1985, in the series' third season. Here are several sites which confirm this:
I found a page which bills itself as "Sgt. Pepper's Mad Mad World." Its premise is that there are connections between "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club," even down to the Big "W" of palm trees on the album's cover. It goes on to say that if you listen to "Sgt. Pepper" while viewing the beginning of the film the links between the two will become evident. [I remember reading about doing the same thing with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Wizard of Oz."] It sounds pretty far-fetched to me, but here's a link to that page anyway for completeness.
Here's what I have found to be what seems to be the best short review of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (from http://video.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?ean=27616865915 ):
From All Movie Guide
With this all-star Cinerama epic, producer/director Stanley Kramer vowed to make "the comedy that would end all comedies."
The story begins during a massive traffic jam, caused by reckless driver Smiler Grogan (Jimmy Durante), who, before
(literally) kicking the bucket, cryptically tells the assembled drivers that he's buried a fortune in stolen loot, "under
the Big W." The various motorists setting out on a mad scramble include an accountant (Sid Caesar) and his wife (Edie Adams);
a henpecked husband (Milton Berle) accompanied by his mother-in-law (Ethel Merman) and his beatnik brother-in-law (Dick
Shawn); a pair of comedy writers (Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney); and a variety of assorted nuts including a slow-wit
(Jonathan Winters), a wheeler-dealer (Phil Silvers), and a pair of covetous cabdrivers (Peter Falk and Eddie "Rochester"
Anderson). Monitoring every move that the fortune hunters make is a scrupulously honest police detective (Spencer Tracy).
Virtually every lead, supporting, and bit part in the picture is filled by a well-known comic actor: the laughspinning
lineup also includes Carl Reiner, Terry-Thomas, Arnold Stang, Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, and The Three Stooges,
who get one of the picture's biggest laughs by standing stock still and uttering not a word. Two prominent comedians are
conspicuous by their absence: Groucho Marx refused to appear when Kramer couldn't meet his price, while Stan Laurel declined
because he felt he was too old-looking to be funny. Available for years in its 154-minute general release version, the film
was restored to its roadshow length of 175 minutes on home video; the search goes on for a missing Buster Keaton routine,
reportedly excised on the eve of the picture's premiere. Hal Erickson
From http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/movies/mv1584.php