My favorite movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was released on November 7, 1963 in what were then called "roadshow engagements." This meant that it played only in big cities and only in one theater in each big city. Tickets were somewhat pricier than at your neighborhood movie house and the film might be at that big theater for many months — maybe even more than a year — before moving on to smaller theaters for smaller prices.
Tickets for roadshow presentations were handled more the way we now buy theater tickets. You usually ordered well in advance and bought tickets to sit in certain seats for a certain performance on a certain date. There was always an intermission and in the lobby, you might purchase a souvenir program book or other goodies.
Mad World opened at the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, a couple blocks west of Vine Street. The theater is still there, though it closed for COVID reasons and while its reopening has been rumored, that hasn't happened yet. If/When it does, I hope they run my favorite movie there again soon. I've seen it there four or five times and it's the perfect place — big screen, good sound, comfy seats…and always, an enthusiastic audience. I'm not kidding when I say that theater was built to show It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It really was.
That, in fact, is where I saw it for the first time…on November 23, 1963. I tell people I saw it the day after Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy and the day before Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. There was understandably a strange mood in that theater (and probably everywhere in the country) that night. In the Cinerama Dome, the mood lasted until the picture got going and we forgot all about the real world for over three hours. The movie was longer then than it is if you see it now.
The reviews were generally positive but a few critics complained that it could have used some cutting and a few weeks later — fortunately, after I'd seen it that first time — a lot of footage was trimmed from the film. The business guys at United Artists had always wanted it to be shorter so there could be more showings of it per day, especially when it reached those smaller theaters. Armed with those reviews, they "persuaded" producer-director Stanley Kramer to lose a number of scenes.
Mad World fans debate whether this was an improvement or a desecration. Kramer usually said he thought the film was the better for the cuts, though he regretted a few of them.
One that some of us regret is a scene, about a minute and sixteen seconds long, with Spencer Tracy on the phone to Buster Keaton. It's Captain Culpepper (Tracy) planning his getaway with Jimmie the Crook (Keaton). I can certainly make the case that the scene is unnecessary and note that it keeps the audience in a little more suspense as to whether Culpepper is actually going to go through with it.
Then again, it's Spencer Tracy and Buster Keaton.
Some film buffs feel Buster Keaton was the greatest comic actor who ever lived. I'd call it a tie between him and a few others but Buster's gotta be in my Top Five, maybe right between Stan and Ollie. I feel the same kind of tie when someone calls Mr. Tracy the best dramatic actor ever in films. How can you cut one of the only scenes ever filmed of two men with that much greatness in their field? And the other such scene, later in the film, lasts mere seconds and in it, Keaton only says three words and Tracy says two.
Its absence reduces Keaton's small role in the film to almost nothing. But it was cut…and lost. In later years when attempts were made to restore the cuts and reconstruct the original, Opening Night length of the movie, the Tracy/Keaton scene was nowhere to be found.
A few years ago, a number of folks helped make possible the restoration that is on the DVD and Blu-ray versions of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World released by the Criterion Collection. What they issued contains two versions of the movie — the "General Release Version," which is the shorter version, and a reconstruction of the longer version. The reconstruction is not perfect but it's probably the most complete version that will ever exist. It also includes a commentary track by my pals Mike Schlesinger and Paul Scrabo, along with me. (Ordering info, if this article makes you want it, is here.)
For the Tracy/Keaton scene, the best the searchers could do was to locate a copy of the scene with almost-unwatchable video but the soundtrack was pretty much intact. So the audio was spliced into the proper space and illustrated on the DVD/Blu-ray with some production stills taken at the time. Interestingly, it is followed by a great scene that pairs two of the greatest comic actors of all time — Phil Silvers and Don Knotts.
Part of the joy of that film, I think, is seeing famous funny person after famous funny person pop up, one after the other…though of course, the fun of those discoveries really only works the first time you see it. That night in the Cinerama Dome when I first saw it, I remember noting that the first appearance of Keaton in the film was followed 90 seconds later by the first appearance of Knotts. The rhythm of that one-two punch was delightful.
If you watch the reconstruction on the Criterion set and have the commentary track on, you'll hear me describing how the video is unavailable but we have the audio…and I also describe a few other scenes in the film where still photos are standing in for lost footage. I had nothing to do with the hunt for such material or the restoration of so much that was happily restored but I still hear now and then from people who are upset that suddenly, there are stills on their screen instead of the actual footage.
Some of them simply don't grasp the concept of "The video is lost so we had to illustrate this scene with photos." One person a year ago wrote, "I don't understand this. Wouldn't it have been simpler to put in the actual scene instead of locating pictures?" Usually though, they refuse to believe the footage could not be located. Someone, they insist, just didn't try hard enough to find it.
There is this rumored collector who allegedly owns a full, complete, missing-nothing 70mm print of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. No one has seen this print. No one knows who he is. No one knows how to reach him. Some people have heard he's in Australia but they don't know where in Australia. They also assume this alleged print is in perfect condition despite the fact that it must have been struck from the original negative in 1963 and almost all film deteriorates as years pass. Entire movies — lots of 'em — have disappeared off the face of this planet, some in a lot less time.
At the last WonderCon I attended in Anaheim, I met a fellow who claimed to be the World's Biggest Fan of this movie — a title for which he has much competition. He told me how disappointed he was with the DVD/Blu-ray set because it was "only" 99% perfect. I don't know how anyone can be disappointed with anything that's "99% perfect." Wouldn't you be thrilled with a pizza that was 99% perfect? Most things in this world fall far short of 100% and we ought be delighted with anything that gets over around the 80% mark. But some people are just like that.
This self-proclaimed World's Biggest Fan told me the 1% problem was the absence of video in those scenes and he asked me about the mythical guy in Australia with a print. I told him I didn't believe there was any such guy or any such print. "Well," he replied. "They should have held off putting the set out until they did locate that video."
I told him that might mean that the DVD/Blu-ray he loved so much might not have come out for years…if ever. He said, "I believe in life it's important to strive for perfection in everything we do." We changed subjects, talked a little more about our favorite movie and then he walked away. And so help me, he had a string of about eight squares of toilet paper stuck to one of his shoes.