Before I leave the first installment of this post and move on to the film’s ethical significance, I should mention that “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World” caught a cultural wave perfectly, accounting for its box office success. In this it was just lucky, and that moment in time is now long gone, which is why the film appeals to me from a historical perspective more than as entertainment.
There have been many attempts to mine the same property for laughs, and none of the offspring of IAMMMMW have equaled its model in reputation or box office success. Blake Edward’s “The Great Race,” just two years later, was billed as the most expensive movie comedy ever made, and bombed. (Peter Falk is in both IAMMMMW and “The Great Race.”) In 2001, the “Airplane!” gang made “Rat Race,” which was obviously inspired by Kramer’s opus. It had a less starry cast (of course) and made a profit, but was generally regarded as a second rate (second rat?) version of the original. “Scavanger Hunt was a 1979 rip-off with a more IAMMMMW-like ensemble cast, and was a flop. Lesser attempts to recycle the film’s formula, “Midnight Madness” and “Million Dollar Mystery” (note the “m” alliterations) were even more embarrassing failures.
On to the ethics…Much was made of the fact that director Stanley Kramer had never directed or produced a comedy before. In fact, his career output was ostentatiously serious, and often criticized as preachy and overly preoccupied with moral-ethical conflicts. Among his most famous movies are “Judgement at Nuremberg,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “Inherit the Wind,” “The Defiant Ones,” “On the Beach” and “Ship of Fools.” I’m sure that part of Kramer’s motivation for directing a huge slapstick comedy was to show his versatility, just as Spielberg felt that he needed to direct a movie musical with “West Side Story.” However, viewed in light of the times and Kramer’s artistic sensibilities, IAMMMMW now seems schizophrenic, a silly comedy with serious social commentary…and both parts undermine each other.
Ethics Alarms 