It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, and a few more movies

THE NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL
#188  [archive]

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)  

Some people swear that this is the funniest movie ever made. It was my dad's favorite comedy, and the whole family gathered 'round the telly whenever it was on, so I've seen it several times. Must've been half snipped away to squeeze into a TV set, though — it's in widescreen CinemaScope, and three and a half hours long. That's longer than Lawrence of Arabia, and more than an hour longer than 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It's directed and produced by Stanley Kramer, a moviemaker known for 'big message' movies like The Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, and On the Beach. Comedy was not known to be Kramer's genius.

Spencer Tracy stars, as a decrepit detective chasing Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, and Jonathan Winters. They're all on a mad treasure hunt, looking for a dead bad guy's buried loot — $350,000!

Half the Hollywood phone book shows up for at least a moment. Among the many, many cameos, my favorites (in order of funniness) are Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, and the Three Stooges — and the Stooges don't even do anything; they're simply a sight gag. The saddest cameo is Buster Keaton, who's given nothing to do except be there.

This is comedy from a different era, so it's sexist, of course. Men leering at a woman's backside — ha ha! Ethel Merman is the only woman in the cast allowed any presence, and all she's given to do is yell.

It's racist too, but only in the sense that nobody black was invited except Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, who gets to sit in Abe Lincoln's lap for a laugh.

Everything about IAMMMMW is loud, never subtle, often silly, and it never slows down. And yet really, nothing much happens. Sid and Mrs Caesar spend an hour stuck in the basement of a hardware store. You could run out for pizza, and Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett would still be flying a plane they don't know how to fly. Dick Shawn spends half the movie hysterically running stop signs in his forever-rush to rescue his momma.

And is any of this funny? Yeah, it is. This is not the funniest movie ever made, or even the funniest film of 1963, not while The Pink Panther and Son of Flubber still exist. But I heard myself laughing, and more often I was smiling. It's a long, long, long, long afternoon wearing a slight grin.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Cell 2455: Death Row (1955) 

Generations later, most Americans — even those of us who aren't true crime fans — still know the name Caryl Chessman. He was a famously despicable kidnapper, serial rapist, and all-around bad guy of the 1940s.

This is his life story, based on his autobiography, and narrated by the actor playing him.

Unsurprisingly, the film of Chessman's life goes easy on Chessman. He had it rough as a kid, you know, and never liked authority, so that's why he started stealing cars and doing stickups and using awful language like "Dirty rotten copper." He got famous for interrupting teenage make-out sessions in parked cars, to kidnap and rape the girls, but remember, he had it rough as a kid.

Despite an introduction explaining (whitewashing) who Chessman was, even showing us a copy of his book, in the movie he goes by the made-up name "Whit Whittier." 

He's played by William Campbell, which is the reason Cell 2455 landed on my watchlist. A decade after this, Campbell played Trelane, "The Squire of Gothos," on a memorable episode of the original Star Trek.

He was great there, as an obnoxious boy-god (and clearly the inspiration for The Next Generation's tedious "Q"). Here, though, Campbell is comically bad, overplaying every emotion and every line the script hands him.

So far as we know, Chessman never killed anyone, but his rape spree got him the death penalty. He wrote his book on death row, hoping to gain sympathy and end the "Lindbergh Law," which made kidnapping a capital offense. This movie serves the same purpose as the book, to argue against the death penalty. 

And that's stupid. Chessman was a wretched, malevolent man, and this biopic about him is thoroughly unpleasant — it's not going to win any arguments against execution.

Your humble film critic is opposed to the death penalty in all cases, even for someone like Chessman. I am also, however, opposed to bad movies.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Dead Space (1991)

This is a cheap rip-off of Alien and Carpenter's The Thing, with poor 1980s effects work and almost no energy.

It stars Marc Singer, already well on his way to being washed-up, and he seems disinterested, considering that he's stuck at a space station in the midst of an epidemic.

In the background are two women who mostly aren't depicted as bimbos, which is appreciated. There's also pre-fame Bryan Cranston as a sciency guy, and some kid who looks and very much acts like a high schooler, but people treat him as if he's a grownup so I guess he's a grownup. 

The movie is from Roger Corman, but it's not one of his good ones. It feels like something made for TV, but there's brief (too brief) nudity, so I guess some poor fools wasted money to watch this.

Not me. I pirated it.

Verdict: BIG NO.

♦ ♦ ♦  

• Coming attractions •

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

China 9, Liberty 37 (1978) 

The Cook (1918)

Doctor Who (second season, 2006)

Good Night, Nurse (1918)

The Scarecrow (1920)

Scarecrow (1973) 

Stalker (1979) 

Street Trash (1987) 

Wisconsin Death Trip (1999) 

The YouTube Effect (2022) 

... plus occasional schlock and surprises 

    • And then •

A Better Tomorrow (1996)

A Night in Casablanca (1946) 

Atomic Cafe (1982) 

The Bat People (1974) 

The Beatles: Get Back (2021) 

Berkeley in the Sixties (1990)

Brainwaves (1983) 

The Card Counter (2021) 

Cellular (2004) 

The Celluloid Closet (1996)

The Day My Parents Became Cool (2009) 

The Decline of Western Civilization (1980)

Downsizing (2017) 

The Exterminating Angel (1964)

Fog Over Frisco (1934) 

The General (1926)

God Bless America (2011)

Hiroshima (1953)

Hobo (1992) 

Invader (1991) 

Jesus of Montreal (1989)

John Wick (2014)

The Killing of America (1981) 

Lady in the Van (2015)

The Last Case of August T Harrison (2015) 

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) 

Line of Duty (debut episode; 2012)

Love Happy (1950)

The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1940)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) 

The Man with Nine Lives (1940)

Motel (1989)

The Naked City (1948)

The Night Strangler (1973) 

Nightmare Alley (1947)

9 to 5 (1980) 

Nothing But a Man (1964) 

Phone Booth (2002) 

Poison (1990) 

Popeye (1980) 

Reflections of Evil (2002) 

Risky Business (1983) 

The Rockford Files (debut episode; 1974)

Romper Stomper (1992)

Room Service (1938) 

Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) 

Saved! (2004) 

The Scarecrow (1920) 

Scarecrow (1973)

Scared to Death (1947) 

Secret Weapons (1985) 

Smothered (2002)

The Soloist (2009) 

Sons of the Desert (1933)

Special Bulletin (1983) 

Squirm (1976) 

Stephen Fry in America (2008) 

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) 

The Man Who Thought Life (1969) 

The Train (1964)

Truck Turner (1974) 

The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time (1981)

Tank Girl (1995)

Taoism Drunkard (1981) 

Who Farted? (2019) 

Who's That Girl? (1987) 

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006) 

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

10/5/2023   

There are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of making them — that if you only watch whatever's on Netflix or playing at the twenty-plex, you're missing out.

To get beyond the ordinary, I recommend:

Alter • Cineverse • Criterion • CultCinema Classics • DocsVille • Dust • Fandor • Films for Action • Hoopla • IHaveNoTV • IndieFlix • Internet Archive • Kanopy • KinoCult • Kino Lorber • Korean Classic Film • Christopher R Mihm • Mosfilm • Mubi • National Film Board of Canada • New Yorker Screening Room • Damon Packard • Mark Pirro • PizzaFlix • PopcornFlix • Public Domain Movies • RareFilmm • Scarecrow Video • Shudder • ThoughtMaybe • Timeless Classic Movies • VoleFlix • WatchDocumentaries • or your local library. 

Some people even access films through shady methods, though of course, that would be wrong.

— — —

 Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Reviews are spoiler-free, or at least spoiler-warned. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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