There's some exciting news for fans of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in The Wall Street Journal this morning. Unfortunately, it requires an on-line subscription to read it so I can't link you to it. But since a nice POVonline reader sent me a copy, I can summarize it for you…
Basically, a gent named Richard A. Harris, who runs a film preservation company in New York, has been tracking down lost footage of the film for years and now believes he's missing only nine minutes of picture and about four minutes of soundtrack. That's not the whole film but it's a good chunk of the 33 or so minutes that were trimmed out a few weeks after the film's 1963 release. Pieces have been located all over the globe but a big find came when a construction worker helped him locate reels of soundtrack that had been stored in a warehouse in Paterson, New Jersey. Here's one excerpt from the article…
Mr. Harris agreed to listen to Mr. Kroeper's sound tracks. The first few were authentic but had nothing on them that wasn't in the shortened version. Then, right where the film's 18th reel should have ended, Mr. Harris heard something unexpected: a phone ringing. He held his breath. A voice said, "Hello?" It was Buster Keaton's growly baritone. On the other end of the line was the voice of Spencer Tracy: "Jimmy?" His hopes rising, Mr. Harris dug through the boxes. He found a reel marked "16" and quickly threaded it onto the player. There was silence, then a series of police radio calls describing a chaotic car chase. They had found one of the movie's oddest artifacts — the entr'acte audio track played during intermission. Only people who saw the film's earliest engagements ever heard that.
As one who saw the film's earliest engagement, allow me to translate: There's a scene still in the movie where Culpepper (Tracy) says he wants an ice cream sundae. Then the following is cut — and remember, I'm telling you this from memory and I was eleven when I saw this: Tracy goes to a Baskin-Robbins shop for some basic product placement and few notes of a song called "31 Flavors" that was being plugged via the movie. He gets his sundae, goes to a phone booth in the back and places a call to Jimmy the Crook (Keaton) to discuss how he wants to get away on Jimmy's boat. As I recall, the conversation took place in split screen and was ambiguous in that it didn't quite tip that Culpepper was going to scram with the $350,000…though when he did later, it seemed a bit less surprising. Anyway, that whole scene has been missing since the end of '63 and now someone has at least located the audio. It was the only time that the man who was perhaps America's greatest dramatic actor worked with the gent who was maybe the greatest comic actor.
The reference to the entr'acte is also intriguing. When I first worked with actor and voice legend Lennie Weinrib, I startled him by telling him I'd recognized his voice in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Lennie did a couple of the voices of policemen heard on the radio and redubbed a few stunt players and other bits of dialogue. He was never billed in any way but I nailed him. Anyway, he told me that he'd also recorded a whole batch of police calls that were played during the intermission at theaters that ran the long version. I didn't remember that at all. (Mr. Weinrib tells me he checks this site every few days. Hey, Lennie! Looks like they found your performance!)
The search for footage is still going on and there are, as yet, no plans to spring for the expense of a full, digital restoration. But even this much news is worth a few huzzahs and a lot of hopeful grins.