Saw It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (thanks, Mark!) It was an ensemble piece where various comedians compete for attention and screen-time, chasing the famous jackpot under The Big "W." It reminded me a lot of Cannonball Run, but better. I feel both films are overstuffed and rely too heavily on our assumed affection for the actors involved, but I thought that Cannonball Run had too much behind-the-scenes competition for lines and a few times it seemed like the actors were trying to out-mug each other, whereas that problem doesn't occur in this film. I suspect the actors were kept a bit more isolated and a bit more tightly controlled in the group scenes. Also the morals involved are a bit better. This film condemns the greed of men in a non-school-marm-ish way. One of the women has this incongruously melancholy monologue about wanting to just get away from these greedy people she's gotten involved with. I sympathize with her because whenever I watch screwballs I can't help but think "why don't they just leave all of these jerks to their jerk-ery and be done with them?" She never gets another line for the rest of the film after that.
So the film is good, but very slap-sticky (which I don't find very funny. I'm an absurd humor kind of guy.) Also, the women involved in the films are all either useless and irrelevant if not actively damaging. 60s sexism aside, the film is mad-cap and fun. I liked the bit just before the intermission, where the film intelligently spins the various story-lines up to a fever-pitch. Also the crescendo in the park is good.
I think this film fell slightly flat for me, but other cameo-heavy screwballs like Cannonball Run and Around the World in 80 Days similarly fell a bit flat, so this is my problem I guess.
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