Here, from the same interview I quoted from earlier, are Phil Silvers' recollections of working on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. In this case, I've edited out a few of my questions…
It was a great honor. Everyone wanted to be in it. Stanley Kramer? Spencer Tracy? No one turns down being in a movie with them. Plus, the idea was to include all the great comedians in Hollywood so everyone wanted to be in it. I knew comics who said, "They wanted me but I turned it down," but they were lying. Nobody didn't want to be a part of it. Even when we were out in the desert and it was 120 degrees in the shade, no one said, "I wish I hadn't agreed to do this picture."
The best show was off-stage. Jonathan Winters carrying on. And Milton [Berle] and Mickey Rooney. Everyone had stories. We used to drive each other crazy. Like with Berle, he was always trying to steal the scene, get a little extra. If there was a scene where he didn't have a line, he'd be trying to insert something. One time, I let it drop that Stanley had invited me to view the dailies. That wasn't true. Stanley didn't let anyone see the dailies. He couldn't. He already had too many stars, too many egos to deal with. But I let it drop that I was seeing dailies and I told everyone, "Watch. In ten seconds, Berle will be on the phone to his agent yelling about, 'How come I don't get to see dailies?'" So I told him and sure enough, ten seconds later…"How come I don't get to see dailies?"
I almost got killed twice during the filming. Well, not exactly killed. But they had this scene where I ride my car down into the river and it sinks. I thought the stuntman was going to do it but Stanley said, "No, your reactions are what will make it funny," and he was right, of course. The car was on pontoons or some sort of raft, so they could lower it like it was on an elevator. There were — what do you call them? Guys in suits with tanks? — frogmen there to pull me out because I can't swim. I almost drowned but it was a great gag. I didn't want them to cut it. The same thing happened with that film I did for Disney. [Boatniks] I swim now but I didn't swim then. What I'll do for a laugh. I almost drowned, both times.
The other time in Mad World, I actually did get hurt. I had to run after Spencer Tracy and I pulled a muscle in my groin. It hurt like hell and I was out of commission for three or four days. Every day, they're calling and asking, "Can you come back? It's just a close-up, no movement." I didn't want to screw up the film so I came back. It was agony but I did it. If it had happened to Berle, he'd never have missed a day of shooting.
I wore this suit and tie throughout the whole movie. Actually, it wasn't the same one. They kept getting ruined. I think we had five or six when we started and finally, the last week of shooting, we were down to one. No, wait. They started with ten or so because the stuntmen were always destroying them. The wardrobe people kept saying to me, "Don't ruin this one." I don't know why. It was just a plain, off-the-rack men's suit. I could have gone into any men's store in L.A. and bought ten more exactly like it. But everyone was worrying that I'd ruin my last suit so they wouldn't let me eat lunch in it. There were some other actors who were in the same situation. Sid Caesar and Edie Adams had these clothes that were all torn and stained with paint so they couldn't even be dry cleaned, and there were several duplicates of each. But they weren't as worried about running out of them as they were about me ruining my last suit.
I loved working with Spencer Tracy. We had a couple of scenes that got cut. I loved working with all those comics. Buster Keaton was there but I didn't really get to know him until we did A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in Spain. I spent most of my time with Berle and Ethel Merman. They were like an old married couple, yelling at each other. Jonathan Winters…God, to watch him just improvise. I improvise all the time but he kept turning into different people, making different sounds. The only guy I never really got along with on the set was Dick Shawn. Strange guy. Very talented but it was like he was speaking some other language.
Kramer didn't have to direct me much. I played the same Bilko I always played. I could have done it in my sleep, except that you couldn't sleep with all those comics around. Buddy [Hackett] — I used to call him "The Bear" — said, "Blink and you lose your position." No one was stealing scenes or catching flies but if you weren't at your best, they were ready to pounce and move in. You know what "catching flies" means?
I did but he told me, anyway…
Catching flies is what we used to call it in burlesque when another comic moved on your line or did business. You're trying to talk and he's doing something — maybe even pretending to be catching flies — to get the audience's attention away from you. Berle was the master at it and also the toughest taskmaster when he caught anyone else doing it. Kramer didn't let us do any of that. Sometimes, he'd say, "It won't match." Whatever you wanted to do, he'd say, "It won't match," but he wouldn't explain why.
It was probably the best movie I was ever in. Maybe Cover Girl was better, I don't know. But I know we all felt like something, like it was really something special. I would've been crushed if they'd left me out.
Later, when the tape wasn't running, Mr. Silvers said (approximately), "The greatest thing is when you work with talent, when you're surrounded by performers who are really good, like I was in Mad World. That's when you think, 'I guess I must be as good as they are.' And if you aren't, you have to become that good in a hurry."