La Grande Course autour du monde

No disrespect to the previous summary...but for the love of MIKE!!! This person does not get it........... The Great Race is a wonderful parody of silent film comedies...even further back than that...to the old time style of theater where the audience boo-ed the villain and cheered the hero! Watching this film is like watching a great Bugs Bunny cartoon, only with very famous live-actors! It's a HOOT!!!!! The frame of mind you need to have is just relax and have a "great" time with The Great Race. This is one of the "greats"!

Although "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" was the first comedy to get the epic film treatment, "The Great Race" is in my opinion the best epic comedy. It's just a much funnier film with so many laughs in its first half that the more serious part dealing with the palace intrigues and the straight sword fight acts more as a breather for the viewer before it revs up again with the funniest pie fight of all time and the smashing (literally) finale. Jack Lemmon shows why he was probably the most versatile comic actor of the 50-60s next to Peter Sellers (this is a long ways from the Lemmon of "The Apartment" or "Irma La Douce"!). Peter Falk, a decade before "Columbo" is hysterical too, while Natalie Wood never looked more sexy (except for the last part of "Gypsy") than she does here.

They don't make this kind of simple comedy devoid of crudity any longer. That's what makes a film like "The Great Race" something to keep coming back to and enjoying again and again.

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, memorably paired in "Some Like It Hot", tried it again in "The Great Race". Natalie Wood was a reluctant addition, with a new biography of this actress repeating her displeasure with the film and its director. Peter Falk, not yet Columbo, rounded out a globetrotting quartet chasing first prize in the 1908 New York to Paris automobile race.

Much has been made of how the script's "Prisoner of Zenda" subplot slows the action. Yet these scenes shot in Salzburg have contributed several zingers to the stock of movie quotes floating around in general circulation. Someone must have liked the "Potzdorf" episode, as "More brandy!" and "Drat!

I never mix my pies!" remain among Jack Lemmon's most cited lines.

Surviving participants in the real-life 1908 competition did not care for this trashing of their personal history. I loved it on its first release way back when, and it remains a pleasant (if long) watch on cable TV and home video.

THE GREAT RACE may not be a masterpiece--but it is a perfect choice for a cold and rainy night: stylish, frothy, and often flatly hilarious, it makes for "comfort viewing" at its best.

One of the movie's several charms is that it draws heavily from Victorian clichés that still linger in the public mind, gives them a gentle comic spin, and then drops them into the tale of an early 1900s auto race from New York to Paris by way of Siberia. Add to this a heap of favorite character actors, a big budget, flamboyant period costumes, and the biggest pie fight ever filmed, and you have a movie where there is always something to enjoy on the screen.

The great thing about THE GREAT RACE are the performances, which are very broad but endowed with a sly humor. The comedy accolades here go to Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk as the notorious Dr. Fate and his bumbling sidekick Max--wonderful bits of acting that will have you hooting with laughter in every scene--and Dorothy Provine scores memorably in a cameo as Lily Olay, the bombshell singer who presides over the most rootin'-tootin' saloon this side of the Pecos.

But every one, from Tony Curtis and the lovely Natalie Wood down to such cameo performers as Vivian Vance, get in plenty of comic chops as the film drifts from one outrageous episode to another: suffragettes crowding a newspaper, the biggest western brawl imaginable, polar bears, explosions, daredevil antics, and a subplot lifted from THE PRISONER OF ZENDA agreeably crowd in upon each other. True, the film does seem over-long and may drag a bit in spots, but it never drags for very long, and it's all in good fun--and the production values and memorable score easily tide over the bare spots. Lots of fun.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Lemmon is brilliant in his dual roles of Prof. Fate and Prince Hoepnick. Completely different characters, yet easily two of Lemmon's best. I always rooted for Prof. Fate to win :) Natalie Wood's Maggie Dubois is energetically comedic, a "modern woman" reporter. She smokes, she cusses, she punches! Natalie Wood was never more beautiful. Tony Curtis' Great Leslie is preposterously perfect. The completely calm eye at the center of this storm, yet the irritant in the eye of the other two principle characters. Peter Falk is perfect as poor Max, the Professor's idiot henchman. The settings are beautiful, the costuming is superb - no wonder it garnered an Academy Award nomination for Cinematography.

"The Great Race," a delightful parody of silent film, is still one of my favorite epic comedies. The adventures of Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood and Peter Falk as they compete in the early twentieth century to win a New York to Paris auto race. This movie is a ride on the Hilarity Express, from the opening credits to the closing scene. Always make me laugh hysterically . And has any other film even approached the firing in rapid salvoes of 2,357 pies in the biggest food fight in cinematic history !!

If you haven't seen this, I highly suggest you rent it. Yes, it is long, but it is one of the few comedies I have seen that keeps up the laughs consistently... it never sags or has dull moments. It is downright hilarious from start to finish. And to top it all off, it has some very cool cars.

"Push the button, Max!" 9/10