It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
The dying words of a thief spark a madcap cross-country rush to find some treasure.
- Director: Stanley Kramer
- Genre:Action / Adventure / Comedy / Crime
- Runtime:148 minutes
Cast
Spencer Tracy : Capt. C. G. Culpepper
Milton Berle : J. Russell Finch
Sid Caesar : Melville Crump
Buddy Hackett : Benjy Benjamin
Ethel Merman : Mrs. Marcus
Official Site:-
“Smiler” Grogan (Jimmy Durante), a suspect in a long ago tuna factory robbery and on the run from the police, careens his car off a twisting, mountainous road in the Southern California desert and crashes. Five motorists stop to help him – Melville Crump (Sid Caesar), a dentist, Lennie Pike (Jonathan Winters), a furniture mover, Dingy Bell (Mickey Rooney) and Benjy Benjamin (Buddy Hackett), two friends on their way to Las Vegas, and J. Russell Finch (Milton Berle), who owns an edible seaweed company. Just before he dies, Grogan tells the five about $350,000 (Equivalent to $3.2 million in 2010 US Dollars) buried in the Santa Rosita State Park, near the Mexican border, under a mysterious “big W”. Initially, the motorists try to reason with each other and share the money, but it soon becomes an all-out race to get the money first. Unbeknownst to them all, Captain Culpepper (Spencer Tracy) of the Santa Rosita Police Department has been patiently working on the Smiler Grogan case for years, hoping to someday solve it and retire. When he learns of the fatal crash, he suspects that Grogan may have tipped off the passersby, so he has them tracked by various police units. His suspicions are confirmed by their behavior.
Everyone experiences multiple setbacks on their way to the money. Crump and his wife Monica (Edie Adams) charter a World War I biplane and barely make it to Santa Rosita, but are almost immediately locked in the basement of a hardware store. They eventually free themselves with dynamite. Bell and Benjamin charter a modern plane, but when their alcoholic pilot (Jim Backus) knocks himself out, the terrified friends are forced to fly and land the plane themselves. Finch, his wife Emmeline (Dorothy Provine), and his loud and obnoxious mother-in-law, Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman), get into a crash with Pike. The three enlist the aid of a British army officer they meet, Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne (Terry-Thomas), to get them to Santa Rosita. After many arguments, most caused by Mrs. Marcus, she and Emmeline refuse to go any farther, and Finch and Hawthorne leave them behind. Pike tries to get motorist Otto Meyer (Phil Silvers) to take him to Santa Rosita, but Meyer betrays Pike and races for the money on his own. Pike is outraged over this and destroys a service station; after the rampage, he steals the station’s tow truck and meets up with Mrs. Marcus and Emmeline and picks them up. Mrs. Marcus calls her beatnik son Sylvester (Dick Shawn), who lives near Santa Rosita, to get the money for them, but he instead races hysterically to the defense of his mother. Meyer experiences his own setbacks, including losing his car and nearly being drowned. All the while, Culpepper and the police department secretly track their activities. Around this time two cab drivers (Peter Falk and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson) get in on the hunt. Read more
