onedayatatimect

All right, if you're looking for dry, cerebral comedy...give this one a whirl, anyway. Despite pratfalls providing 90% of the laughs, this film also chronicles how greed supersedes all other considerations in the lives of a group of motorists who attend the death of a long-incarcerated thief, whose final words indicate the hiding place of his spoils. Performances by such venerated comic talent as Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Buddy Hackett...just read the cast list, re-numerating them here is redundant...keep the characters' escalating frustration and in-fighting both believable and hilarious. Auto enthusiasts and road picture fans will find additional thrills as scores of vintage cars and trucks are raced, mangled and destroyed across the two-lane blacktop that dominated southeastern California before the domination of the superhighway.

Best of all, the laughs are for everyone. There is no objectionable language or adult situations of which to be wary, so this is a perfect alternative to contemporary animated fare, and a great way to introduce children to the idea that vintage entertainment can still be fun. I first saw this on television as a child in the 1970s, and laughed myself to tears. Thirty years later, I still need to keep the Kleenex handy.