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With S.O.B., Victor/Victoria and the Pink Panther series, director Blake Edwards perfected the craft of extracting the ridiculous from the sublime, while managing to throw in a healthy dose of slapstick in the process. The Great Race was no exception to this winning formula, as Edwards assembled an all-star cast and a fast-paced script to create a textbook model of the big-screen comedy adventure. As a story, the movie skewers a real bit of history -- the turn-of-the-century automobile contests that were as emblematic of the times as bowler hats and bustles. In the film, do-gooder Tony Curtis (his pearly whites reflecting the sun's rays like diamonds) faces off against nefarious Jack Lemmon in a 22,000-mile auto race from New York to Paris (you read that right). Add to the mix a third driver, Natalie Wood as a suffragette out to prove that women can press the pedal to the metal like any man, and you've got a two-and-a-half-hour joyride that can stand among the big-screen spectaculars of the era. (The film arrived in theaters in 1965, only two years after It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and the same year as Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines.) In fact, just as you're thinking that Edwards has loaded up the film with everything but a free-for-all pie fight -- alas, one breaks out! And like everything else in this old-fashioned romp of a movie, it's joyfully over the top. Bruce Kluger

All Movie Guide

Tony Curtis stars as The Great Leslie, a hero among heroes whose purity of heart is manifested by his spotlessly white wardrobe. Leslie's great rival, played by Jack Lemmon, is Professor Fate, a scowling, mustachioed, top-hatted, black-garbed villain. Long envious of Leslie's record-setting accomplishments with airships and sea craft, Professor Fate schemes to win a 22,000-mile auto race from New York City to Paris by whatever insidious means possible. The problem is that Fate is his own worst enemy: each of his plans to remove Leslie from the running (and from the face of the earth) backfires. Leslie's own cross to bear is suffragette Maggie Dubois (Natalie Wood), who also hopes to win the contest and thus strike a blow for feminism. The race takes all three contestants to the Wild West, the frozen wastes of Alaska, and, in the longest sequence, the mythical European kingdom of Carpania. This last-named country is the setting for a wild Prisoner of Zenda spoof involving Professor Fate and his look-alike, the foppish Carpanian king. When Leslie and Fate approach the finish line at the Eiffel Tower, Leslie deliberately loses to prove his love for Maggie. Professor Fate cannot stand winning under these circumstances, thus he demands that he and Leslie race back to New York. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk as Fate's long-suffering flunkey Max, Keenan Wynn as Leslie's faithful general factotum, Dorothy Provine as a brassy saloon singer, Larry Storch as ill-tempered bandit Texas Jack, and Ross Martin as Baron Von Stuppe. The film also yielded a hit song, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer's "The Sweetheart Tree." The Great Race was dedicated to "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy." Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 085391109129
• Source: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Cinemascope (2.35:1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français
• Subtitles: English, Français, Español, Portugais, Japanese
• Time: 2:40:00
• Sales Rank: 1,651

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