It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Year: 1963
Director: Stanley Kramer
Country: US
Language: English

Slapstick comedy in motion pictures predates the Twentieth Century; it was introduced into Cinema by the French Lumiere Brothers in 1895 for a film called L’Arroseur arrosé (Watering the Gardener). The plot was relatively simple; a young boy steps on a garden hose as a gardener waters a lawn, cutting off the water, only to step off just as the gardener looks into the nozzle. Since then artists like Charles Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton have made a great career out of slapstick comedy and it has changed the world entire. Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a powerful testament to the the genre.

After a long prison sentence Smiler Grogan is heading at high speed to a California park where he hid $350,000 from a job 15 years previously. He accidentally careens over a cliff in view of four cars whose occupants go down to help. The dying Grogan gives details of where the money is buried to the witnesses, which starts a chaotic chase across the state.

Delirious, Chaotic, Insane, Epic; these are a few words that can be used to describe the pure madness that is It's A Mad,Mad, Mad World. The camera is constantly moving, cutting back and forth between characters who have found themselves in a dire situation, such as being on a plane with a drunk & unconscious pilot, due to their desire for the almighty dollar. The film is full of cameos by comedic greats, like Jack Benny, Buster Keaton and even The Three Stooges. The cast is so full of stars that other comedy legends would call Director Stanley Kramer at all hours of the day, infuriated that they weren't considered a part. 

Though the film's pace is frantic and each scene is full of obsessive characters, our senses never become overloaded. Nor does the picture become boring despite the 3+ hr running time, which makes it one of the longest comedies ever made. The off-the-wall antics make Mad World incredibly entertaining and the money definitely adds an element of suspense and intrigue. Unfortunately some special effects near the end of the film are incredibly dated, however the humor is timeless. A hundred years from now people mostly likely still find something to chuckle about. 

In conclusion, though it's a rather silly movie I'd like to think that Kramer has imprinted a serious message about the nature of greed in Mad World. Once we starting living only for money do we make fools of ourselves. We laugh at them because we see these kind of people everyday in real life. Thus the film is a critical statement about capitalism and those who are possessed by it. By the Criterion Collection Edition today! Praise it! 4.5/5