Time has overshadowed the audacity of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the 1963 feature film featuring an elite cast of comedians. The initial idea, conceived by writer-pair William and Tanya Rose and producer-director Stanley Kramer, was a blockbuster comedy: a four-hour epic with two intermissions, featuring all the notable comic characters then alive.As Curtis wrote in his introduction, the film was meant to be "the comedy to end all comedies... Ben-Hur for slapstick comedy, Gone with the Wind for frantic chase adventures." Although scaled back slightly from its initial design, the film succeeded in achieving its goal, marking the pinnacle of slapstick comedy before film comedy moved toward the new satirical style embodied in Dr. Strangelove (released the following year).Through this comprehensive history, the author tells the unexpected story of how such a massive project came to be. Readers will recognize Kramer, who is an unexpected choice to direct a film like this, given his reputation for directing films with dramatic messages, as well as the wonderful Tanya Rose, who worked in the British Ministry of Information during World War II and was the perfect writing partner for her husband, Bill, who suffered from depression. Their attempt to reconcile the greatest comedy crew ever proved to be...Full of madness and mayhem, just like anything ever seen on screen. Terry Thomas commented,
One cast member joked to his cast mates: "I find them all together a bit hard to digest, but individually they're delicious." Besides the film's production, Curtis addresses, among other topics, the controversial editing process—in which United Artists deleted scenes from the film against Kramer's will—and its premiere at the new Cinerama Dome cinema in Hollywood on the same day as John F. Kennedy's assassination. Kennedy. The book offers,Rich in detail and color, this behind-the-scenes look at the making of a unique film and a film industry that is in the midst of a generational shift.
