Home > It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Not only was It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World filmed in Cinerama (the biggest of the widescreen cinema technologies), it also had an all-star cast, with literally dozens of major comedy stars from all eras of cinema making appearances in the film.

Stars of this film included:

• Edie Adams as Monica Crump, wife of Melville Crump
• Eddie Anderson as a cab driver
• Milton Berle as edible seaweed salesman J. Russell Finch
• Sid Caesar as dentist Melville Crump
• Jimmy Durante as Smiler Grogan
• Peter Falk as a cab driver
• Buddy Hackett as gambler Benjy Benjamin
• Ethel MermanEthel Merman ( January 16, 1908 February 15, 1984) was a star of stage and film musicals, well known for her strident voice and comic acting. She was born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann in Astoria, Queens, New York, of a German Lutheran father and Scottish Presby as Mrs. Marcus, mother-in-law of J. Russell Finch
• Dorothy Provine as Emmaline Finch, wife of J. Russell Finch
• Mickey RooneyJoe Yule, Jr. born September 23, 1920), better known as Mickey Rooney is an American film actor. Rooney was born into a vaudeville family. He moved into film in 1927, making his name with a series of over forty silent two-reel comedies (1927 to 1933) wher as gambler Ding Bell
• Dick Shawn as Sylvester Marcus, Emmaline's brother
• Phil SilversPhil Silvers ( May 11, 1911 November 1, 1985) was an American entertainer and comedy actor. His best-known work is The Phil Silvers Show a 1950s sitcom set on a US Army post in which he played Sergeant Bilko; the show was also often referred to by this na as Otto Meyer
• Terry-ThomasTerry-Thomas Thomas Terence Hoare-Stephens ( 14 July 1911 8 January 1990) was a distinctive British comic actor of the 1950s and 1960s. He was famous for his trademark gap in his front teeth, cigarette holder, dressing gown, and such catch-phrases as, "Di as Lt. Col. Algernon Hawthorne
• Spencer TracySpencer Bonaventure Tracy ( April 5, 1900 June 10, 1967) was an American film actor who appeared in 74 films from 1930 through the 1960s. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of a truck salesman. At the beginning of World War I he left scho as Captain Culpepper
• Jonathan WintersJonathan Winters (born November 11, 1925 in Dayton, Ohio) is an American comedic actor. He began comedy routines and acting while studying at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Winters has appeared in nearly 50 movies and several television shows, including as truck driver Lenny Pike

There were also cameo appearances by:

• Jim BackusJim Backus ( February 25, 1913 July 3, 1989) was a radio, television and movie actor, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr. Magoo, the rich Herbert Updike of the Alan Young radio show, Joan Davis' husband, a domestic court judg
• Jack Benny
• Norman Fell
• Stan Freberg
• Sterling Holloway
• Edward Everett Horton
• Buster Keaton
• Don Knotts
• Charles Lane
• Jerry Lewis
• and the Three Stooges

The plot of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World follows the occupants of four vehicles who stop to help a man who has just careened off the highway. With his dying breaths, the man tells the bystanders about $350,000 that he hid in the town of Santa Rosita, less than a day's drive away, under “the big W”. A wild race across the desert follows, as each carload of people tries to be first to find the money and claim it for themselves.

Kramer claimed he wanted to make the ultimate comedy film. At more than two and a half hours (originally including an intermission) it is certainly one of the longest. Most of the humor is not especially sophisticated, consisting mainly of very noisy slapstick gags. Terry-Thomas's character's rant against the American obsession with bosoms still strikes a chord with non-American audiences.

The title was taken from Thomas Middleton's 1605 comedy A Mad World, My Masters . Kramer claimed to have considered adding a fifth "mad" to the title before deciding that it would be redundant.

The New Avengers episode "The Tale of the Big Why" seems to have borrowed part of its storyline from IAMMMMW - at the end of the episode the characters realise they are looking not for a metaphysical "big why" but a physical "big Y".

In an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, the characters, following a treasure map , find that they have not been looking for an X marked in the sand, but the location where the shadows of two crossed palm trees falls. Of course, this would change throughout the day, but that does not matter in the greater scheme of the plot (see suspension of disbelief).

A 1994 episode of The Simpsons, "Homer the Vigilante," features money supposedly hidden beneath a "big T," along with other elements borrowed from the movie.