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Author Topic: It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 12-10-2004 03:56 AM                        Apparently a lot of people here really like the movie for its content, not just the historical value. That surprises me, but if it makes you happy, that's all that is needed! My lack of appreciation doesn't have much to do with "cultural" differences. It's just me. But many people in Germany love that kind of forced humor. I wasn't around back then, but I can imagine it was a big hit there. Bruce - I like to say that "Das Boot" (which is BTW not pronounced like the sturdy footwear but simply with a long o) is the only German movie made after the 20s really worth watching. While that is a little over the top, it is true that German movies as a whole have never reached again the innovativeness and high standard they had in the 20s. After 1933, the evil Nazis took over the film industry and made it into a streamlined propaganda machine, driving most talents away (like Lang, Lubitsch, Lorre, Dietrich, and many others). The industry has never recovered from that bloodletting.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-10-2004 08:15 AM                     Actually I've always thought of MMW as a historical film for the fact that its the only time al those people worked together. Its also I believe the last time several of them worled at all.... Buster Keaton comes to mind. Had it been shot in any other film format wouldn't have mattered to me. I first saw it in 35mm and a number of years later ran it in 70mm in my basement. The 70mm sound track was nice...... I also like Das Boot and submarine films in general.... its very easy for me to become submerged in the plot of them . Dive.... Dive.... Dive..... Mark  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-17-2004 07:29 PM                      |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-18-2004 12:43 PM                        quote: Michael Schaffer While that is a little over the top, it is true that German movies as a whole have never reached again the innovativeness and high standard they had in the 20s. I've got a lot of time for some of the German films from the immediate post-WWII period dealing with reconstruction issues: e.g. Die Mörder sind unter uns and Der Verlorene. But most of the New Wave stuff from the '60s and '70s - Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his ilk - is pretentious and boring, IMHO.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-18-2004 02:10 PM                     Just watched this for the first time all the way thru on DVD. (Used to just catch the middle or end on TV) What "version" is the DVD version? Seemed kind of short to me even at 2:40. I was expecting something over 3 hours. I've always wondered if you can keep people interested and laughing for that long. I've always envisioned a 4+ hour comedy! =TMP=  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-20-2004 03:02 AM                        quote: Thomas Procyk What "version" is the DVD version? The DVD version is the "short" version; the only release version extant. The DVD has got some problems of its own, screwed up title sequence, missing music, etc. For the longer one, watch on Amazon for the laserdisc or better yet the VHS in the covers posted earlier. The footage they were able to put back in from a work print, a bit of a found longer 70mm cut, etc. to try to put some of the flesh back makes the movie like night & day. It flows better, the character development is more smooth & plausible, there are some tiny gems of very short bits. I could never watch the (still long) short version on TV - shortened already as much as possible for length, & I think it's the reason a lot of people don't latch on to it - it's just a matter of getting from plot point to plot point & the next big stunt. It's an epic comedy, & epics have action, close observations about people & society, & huge scale. I thought it was funny when I was a kid, but when I got older, I realized how *really* funny it is, & how subversive. Folks coming to it thinking that it's going to be a big Mack Sennett comedy with prattfalls & stunts are impatient with it, & put off by a lot of what advances it. It's a social drama in hilarious comedy drag. It was *incredibly* sly when released because in American movies of the time, nice middle class Americans were standardized types. Usually bad things happened to bad people, people with good middle class virtues did well, what comes around goes around, you get what's coming to you. In Mad World, a bunch of average people of all types slowly deteriorate following their own self interests, wrecking their lives, & very significantly, causing incredible damage to the rest of people in society who are just unfortunate enough to be there to be affected by them. Air traffic controllers who just show up for work, people eating dinner in a restaurant, a guy who just runs a hardware store, some guys open a gas station, etc. - all doomed by these people who've deteriorated. I used to think the Jack Benny bit was just gratuitous to get him in the picture, but now I see how it really belongs there. Not just big, horrible things happen to folks who are affected by the characters in the movie, but little assaults, too. The scale is terrific. Upstanding, iconic middle class social types deteriorate horribly: a well-adjusted dentist who works out a complicated, fair & useful manner of sharing found wealth deteriorates to a point where he can't straighten out "You go the way you came, we'll go the way you came." Good solutions become unworkable, just because of the way things are that day - who you meet, other things that happen. The unsupported, hopeful cliche' of "things will work out" is disproved - as it happens in real life, things sometimes just get worse. The audience's faith in "normal" mature folks is worked on, & even "innoncence" - a cute, happy little kid who offers help turns out only to be interested in a joyride & watching something funny happen to a grownup. I never thought of it before, but parents certainly couldn't realize it because of the length & plausibility of development, for kids taken to this movie, it's a very significant eye-opening point for maturation of their view way of the world: Adults aren't stable, godlike beings, they 're folks who fall apart, become infantile, animalistic, & laughable. As far as the comedians in the picture go, none of them are really doing their usual bits (except Phil Silvers & some bit players). The rest are showing what EXCELLENT actors they are - you don't have to do character development in almost any comedy. Milton Berle plays straight so beautifully; he's holding up almost every scene he's in. When he gets to do a team spot with Terry-Thomas, the two of them are a MACHINE. (That's another point about the sort of theme of 'things don't have to work out for the best' - for the 1st time in his life, Berle's character finally gets some decent support in life from meeting Terry-Thomas, but that relationship goes in the dumper & it's all over.) As far as the historical aspect, the only 'historical' aspect I like about the movie is the cars. Those MOPARS (Dodge, Chrysler, & Plymouth autos) were just otherworldly, outstanding, unbelievable in their agility, speed, & HUGE tonnage! Look at those multi-ton things flying unbelievably - like the dancing hippos in Fantasia, it's just visually so unlikely, but in Mad World, proof that it's all true. Those things had torsion bar front suspensions (like Jaguar!), & were smack on the beam. Those drivers in the movies just tightened the torsion bars down, & slung those cars into any seemingly physically impossible situation of inertia & stress, & peeled at the top of those monster MOPAR motors. I have liked NO big cars & preferred 2 seater British sports cars, but the exception is all those big MOPARS, & I loved them all. Check one of the very few 'car' scenes in which they didn't use a MOPAR - Dick Shawn in a Dodge Dart convertible chasing Berle & Terry-Thomas in a Chevrolet. They run the Chevrolet on the shoulder & it's funny because it's banging & swaying & looks like it's just hanging on, but the Dart goes across an unpaved, unmowed lot at top speed with the inexorability, inevitablilty, & unmutability of a thought from the mind of Zeus or something. PLEASE OH NO don't hit that TR-3 while you're chasing Spencer Tracy! Even the cars have character development. They're maneuvering around each other slyly & semi-socially at the beginning of the movie, at the end those old Plymouth Belvedere cabs are circling, snarling, & attacking like dogs. There's spectacle, and all the gags are funny. I love the movie. There's a lot in it, on so many levels. The short version doesn't work very well, it's like someone who tells you a joke but they blow the setup.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-20-2004 08:04 PM                     Its burried under a big doubleu... a big doubleu I tell ya, ya can't miss it!  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 12-26-2004 05:25 PM                     Michael Schaffer wrote: quote: Michael Schaffer I like to say that "Das Boot" (which is BTW not pronounced like the sturdy footwear but simply with a long o) is the only German movie made after the 20s really worth watching. Come on, Michael, show some respect for SCHTONK! (1991)  |  IP: Logged

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