We're delighted that Joe Dante's addictive "Trailers from Hell" site has revisited Stanley Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". All comedy is subjective. It's pointless to try to convince someone they should find a film funny or not funny because it appeals to our basic instincts: if you find it funny, you can't help but laugh. Conversely, if you don't find it amusing, no amount of persuasion can convince you otherwise.
The trailer for this Cinerama comedy epic is narrated by the "Dean of Classic Film Distributors", Michael Schlesinger, who makes the argument that the film isn't just the greatest comedy of all time, the greatest movie of all time! We wouldn't quite go that far but we agree with Schlesinger that every frame of the film fills us with delight. Strangely enough, the late great David V. Picker, who greenlit the film as head of production at United Artists, always loathed the movie because it's excessive budget caused him to fall out with Stanley Kramer, a man he respected greatly and who he worked with on numerous occasions. He forced Kramer to make substantial cuts to the roadshow version before it went into wide release. Some of the missing footage was later found and restored for home video release. The rift between Picker and Kramer was unfortunate but David told us that he felt he had to insist on the trims for commercial reasons. He said the first cut Kramer showed him ran an astounding 4 hours and one minute! Regardless of the controversies surrounding the film, we agree it's certainly a triumph of widescreen cinema.