I have this link up in the right margin of this page whereby you can pre-order the Criterion Blu-ray/DVD of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World from Amazon. The link was busted from Amazon's end for a few days but it's now working again.
The set contains two versions of the movie — the always-available General Release version and a special new, as-restored-as-humanly-possible version that puts back lots of cut footage. Unless they trimmed the line, I can be heard in the commentary track of the longer version advising you that if you're going to show this movie to someone who's never seen it before, show them the shorter version. In fact, if I were you and I had seen the film before, I'd suggest you watch the shorter version again…then in a few days or a week or three, watch the longer version with the commentary track. I'll mention this again before the film comes out in January.
It's always amused me that on most pages where Amazon is selling a book or movie, they offer you a special package deal in which you can get the item you want plus another, related item for either the exact same price as you'd pay to order them separately…or a few cents more. I'm not sure if it changes but at the moment, they have a film paired up with Mad World. They always entitle these deals "Frequently Bought Together" and they're two movies or two books on related themes or featuring the same stars or authors or something.
So what is the movie that they claim is "Frequently Bought Together" with Mad World? You'd figure it would either be a Spencer Tracy film, a Stanley Kramer movie or a big comedy like The Great Race or Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, right?
Well, at this very minute, it's Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood. Hey, there's a film that has so much in common with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I mean, along with the fact that the Three Stooges make cameo appearances in both.
Purchased separately on Amazon, they'd cost you $62.91. But if you click the link to buy both at the same time, you can get them for $62.94. So don't miss this golden opportunity to spend three more cents when you join the throngs that buy these two films at the same time.