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Criterion ready to release IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD (1 Viewer)

How Would you want Criterion to handle MAD WORLD?

  • I would like to see *everything* that was included on the Laserdisc release even if it does not matc

    Votes: 119 65.7%
  • The film is too long already. Would only want to see those scenes intended for the original RoadSho

    Votes: 53 29.3%
  • All I want is the overture and exit music. Don't need all those extra scenes added

    Votes: 9 5.0%

  • Total voters
    181
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John Morgan

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Carl LaFong said:
I'm currently reading T-T's autobiography TERRY-THOMAS TELLS TALES, which was published posthumously in 1991. He has some surprisingly negative and unflattering things to say about the cast of IAMMMMW, especially Jonathan Winters (he says Winters was "jealous" of him) and Jack Benny (T-T says Benny had no sense of humor!) He also as much as implies that he had an affair with Edie Adams.

If that sounds ridiculous, I can transcribe the passages verbatim -- if anyone is doubtful or interested. T-T may have been misremembering events or else in advanced stages of Parkinson's, the terrible disease that ravaged both his health and his finances. The book was written very late in his life, and may have been "enhanced" by editors after his death. In any case I'm taking it all with a grain of salt. The very suggestion that Benny lacked a sense of humor is, from all available sources, utterly absurd.

He does admit to being awed by Spencer Tracy and Buster Keaton, however. Mickey Rooney and the rest of the cast, not so much...
I am pretty sure Jack Benny wasn't near the desert when he filmed his insert with a process screen. I bet they used a double for the long shot of the car with stunt double as the Jerry Lewis cameo was done. I would think both Lewis and Benny did their bit in a very short period and I wonder if T-T even met Benny on the shoot.
 

Robert Harris

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John Morgan said:
I am pretty sure Jack Benny wasn't near the desert when he filmed his insert with a process screen. I bet they used a double for the long shot of the car with stunt double as the Jerry Lewis cameo was done. I would think both Lewis and Benny did their bit in a very short period and I wonder if T-T even met Benny on the shoot.
View attachment Mad World - Shooting Schedule (dragged).pdf
 

Carl LaFong

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Terry-Thomas met Benny at a party, not on set -- according to his book. He was introduced to JB by Groucho. He told Benny an innocent joke and Benny didn't care for it at all. He doesn't give the date or the location, but he does relate the joke. Not a knee-slapper exactly, but I can imagine Thomas' droll delivery making any joke funny.

The whole story seems out-of-character. Maybe Benny was having a bad day? T-T's conclusion about JB's lack of a sense of humor seems unwarranted, and flies in the face of everything we know about Benny from other sources. But it's NOT an urban Hollywood legend off the Internet. It's a first-hand account in Terry's book.
 

Joe Lugoff

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Jack Benny had a career that lasted over half a century, and Terry-Thomas summed him up after meeting him for five minutes ... and we're discussing this?

OK, then I'll tell you what T-T supposedly said about Ethel Merman.

I wasted a couple hours of my life reading Boze Hadleigh's trashy book "Broadway Babylon," about the nastier, vulgar side of Broadway. It goes without saying that Ethel Merman gets a whole chapter to herself.Terry-Thomas is quoted as having said this about Ethel: "She was merely the most foul-mouthed and loud-mouthed female I have ever had the shock and displeasure of working with."

Oddly enough, I crossed paths with her myself in 1968. I merely asked her for her autograph, and she brushed me off with, "Not now, honey, I got a show to do."

Have any of the rest of you ever crossed paths with any of MAD WORLD's cast? I envy my mother to this day because she once saw the Three Stooges talking in a hotel lobby -- not just one stooge, or two --all three of them! It was Joe DeRita, and not Curly or Shemp ... but still ...
 

Rob_Ray

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Joe Lugoff said:
Have any of the rest of you ever crossed paths with any of MAD WORLD's cast? I envy my mother to this day because she once saw the Three Stooges talking in a hotel lobby -- not just one stooge, or two --all three of them! It was Joe DeRita, and not Curly or Shemp ... but still ...
I spoke with Edie Adams at a collectors' show. She was incredibly gracious and enthusiastic. Very nice lady.

I once heard a chat with Onna White and Buddy Hackett at a screening of "The Music Man." Onna was a tough bird and chided Buddy because try as he might, he never could execute a "bell-kick" in the Shipoopi number. Buddy was a typically loud, obrasive comic, but he was almost timid in Onna's presence.

I've met Mickey Rooney at several collectors' shows. Sometimes, he had an attitude that seemed to say "get away from me kid, ya bother me!" and other times he was deeply appreciative of a fan's admiration.

I actually had an unexpected lunch with Marvin Kaplan once after seeing him perform in a radio re-enactment at the Roosevelt Hotel's Cinegrill in Hollywood in the mid-90's. Several of us were dining at a window seat at a nearby Hamburger Hamlet after his performance and we saw him walk past the restaurant and stop outside our window. We knocked on the glass to give him a "thumbs up" on a job well done and he came inside and joined us! I had to pick up the tab so I could say I once took Marvin Kaplan to lunch.
 

Carl LaFong

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For the record, Terry-Thomas LIKED Ethel Merman and seems to have enjoyed working with her, according to his book. He makes that clear, although he does acknowledge her domineering side. I wouldn't put much stock in any celebrity book with "Babylon" in the title, BTW.
 

Moe Dickstein

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Not that it means anything, but Deadline.com just put up a story about UA Studio Head David Picker's new memoir. There's a quote about Mad World:

http://www.deadline.com/2013/09/living-legend-david-pickers-movie-memoir/

"Why would Stanley Kramer say to the studio that financed his film, It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, that he couldn’t and wouldn’t cut one frame from his four hour and one minute version of the film?"

I'm getting the book on Kindle, we'll see what the whole story is...
 

Moe Dickstein

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Just read the chapter on Kramer in the book (I bought it for Kindle).

Picker is not a fan of Kramers, but of note is the fact that Kramer most definitely preferred a longer cut of this film to a shorter one if you believe what's written here. Since he went over budget, he lost final cut so all of the pressure to shorten the film was on UAs end, not Kramers, so that would put to rest the idea that the shorter general release cut would be preferred by Kramer to the initial roadshow release. If you trust Picker as a source.
 

Joe Lugoff

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The problem is I don't trust Picker or anyone else as a source. We've heard several stories from several sources and they all contradict each other. We'll never know the facts of the situation.

I just like to think that what opened on November 7, 1963 at the Cinerama Dome is what Kramer wanted and he was pressured to make cuts, especially after even the favorable reviews said the movie was too long.

What I'll never understand is why the cuts were just thrown in the waste can. That's good proof of the title of the movie.
 

Robert Harris

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Joe Lugoff said:
The problem is I don't trust Picker or anyone else as a source. We've heard several stories from several sources and they all contradict each other. We'll never know the facts of the situation.

I just like to think that what opened on November 7, 1963 at the Cinerama Dome is what Kramer wanted and he was pressured to make cuts, especially after even the favorable reviews said the movie was too long.

What I'll never understand is why the cuts were just thrown in the waste can. That's good proof of the title of the movie.
Because that was the way that deletions were treat at the time. Nothing out of the ordinary. Storage is expensive.

RAH
 

Ronald Epstein

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Because that was the way that deletions were treat at the time. Nothing out of the ordinary. Storage is expensive.
If the rumors are true, same reason why original negatives of film were
dumped in the Pacific Ocean by studio(s).
 

Ethan Riley

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Somebody told me that when MGM sold off its assets in the 70s, they emptied storage vaults and file cabinets and used them as landfill, and they're supposedly still under the 405 freeway or somewhere. They should dig 'em up!
 

Joe Lugoff

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Earlier in 1963, CLEOPATRA was cut even more than MAD WORLD, but it wasn't thrown in the waste can (although it probably should have been.)
 

cineMANIAC

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Were people actually expecting Criterion to release MAD WORLD this year? I wouldn't hold my breath, in fact, I don't expect to see this for quite some time if they're really working on an all-encompassing box set. Once this sludges out of the rumor stage and a formal announcement is made, it's entirely possible a year or more will transpire before we see the final product. Just being realistic here.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Once this sludges out of the rumor stage and a formal announcement is made, it's entirely possible a year or more will transpire before we see the final product. Just being realistic here.
No. January or February. There shouldn't be that kind of delay.
 

Paul Rossen

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Joe Lugoff said:
Earlier in 1963, CLEOPATRA was cut even more than MAD WORLD, but it wasn't thrown in the waste can (although it probably should have been.)
But FOX did throw out all of the out takes...
 
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