692 It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

[EddieLarkin]

If there is any visible difference, it's solely a product of different disc authoring. I suppose Fox may have tweaked the master a little when prepping their release, but offhand I'm not seeing a significant difference.

There is no significant difference, but one clearly looks better than the other to me, however slightly. If you look closer it may become more obvious. The MGM/Fox disc looks a tad blurred in comparison.

[Moe Dickstein]

That made one thing clear. I'm doing a kickstarter to get braces for Uncle Milty.

[Numero Trois]

Moe, what distinctions do you make between this film and something like the 1967 Casino Royale? I haven't seen IaMMMW, but I have seen the latter. Like for probably a lot of people, its bad enough to make me stay away from any other sixties film that shares that "kitchen sink" aesthetic. Of course they're not all completely alike, but surely many of them are uneven at best, if not downright unfunny and impressive only in their wastefulness. Like in the latter movie's case. But even that one does seem to have a few defenders.

[Moe Dickstein]

Well in the case of Casino Royale, the comparison with Mad World is coherence. MW had one director, one pair of writers, and wasn't subject to upheval, multiple directors and mid shooting plot rewrites.

While MW is certainly antic and raucous and epic, the story is quite coherent linear, among multiple threads that split and re-merge, and, to me, funny and enjoyable. CR is more like watching a train wreck, enjoyable in a different sort of way.

This particular edition will be interesting for those who like to see the effects of film editing, what is gained and lost in the storytelling when large chunks of film are removed, like what you'd see with something like Mr. Arkadin and its multiple edits.

[Moe Dickstein]

Finally got my copy (took 9 days to get here from NYC).

If anyone has any questions I can now be of more use

[swo17]

Does it fall faster than a feather?
Will it steady a table with one short leg?
Can it bear the weight of a heavyset child?
Does it remove oil stains?

[FrauBlucher]

If anyone has any questions I can now be of more use

Moe, you've already been of more use.

[Moe Dickstein]

The restoration demo is great. I even learned a little bit more and I was at the lab when they were doing it.

The Sound and Vision documentary is very interesting, Ben Burtt going over all the work that goes into the sound effects etc. I started out looking at disc two.

[Moe Dickstein]

Does it fall faster than a feather?
Will it steady a table with one short leg?
Can it bear the weight of a heavyset child?
Does it remove oil stains?

I'd guess yet, not going to drop my precious to find out.
If the leg was that exact length short, sure!
I would say so, so long as he didn't move around a lot and scratch the DVDs
I would very much doubt it, loose oil the paper might absorb some though.

[FrauBlucher]

I have to admit, even though I am not a fan of the film I would love to see many of the supplements. I am hoping to borrow from a friend.

[Moe Dickstein]

some of the matte painting work and optical printer work is truly first class.

Frau, I'd recommend (if you can stand it) to watch the extended version with the commentary. That way you don't have to just pay attention to the film and you can see some of the different reconstruction techniques in context

[FrauBlucher]

Who does the commentary?

[Moe Dickstein]

Three people in the industry who have done a lot of fan research over the years. It's supposed to be first class and jammed with info for the whole 3.25 hours

[colinr0380]

The commentary is great. I've been mostly focusing on that on and off over the week. To tease a couple of early sections from it, there is lots of background information on which performers were originally dreamt for the roles, and it is interesting to see how that changed, and they put forward the theory that Jimmy Durante and Buster Keaton might have swapped their roles at one point.

They also point out the way that Phil Silvers counts himself twice in the opening credits, which is an amusing call back to his failed attempt at division of the spoils under the big W at the end! (He obviously missed that the rest of the cast had already bickered about that before they met him!)

EDIT: The Sound and Vision documentary about the sound and special effects of the film is absolutely fantastic! Amazing to see the behind the scenes footage of the gas station destruction and the final scene, and very amusing to see all the technicians intently focused on propelling dummies around the screen! This feature reminds me that Criterion, with this and similar features on Modern Times and Safety Last is doing a really important and valuable thing in rebalancing the focus usually placed on special effects spectacle from action and sci-fi films back to comedies, and showing how important effects are to comic works.

Especially after its namechecking during the commentary here, I think in addition to all the Chaplin and Lloyd we know will soon be coming, it would be amazing if Criterion could be able to get hold of Jackie Chan's Project A for release. That particular film (along with say the Police Story series or Wheels on Meals which focus on vehicle action) is a really fantastic compendium of tricks gathered from past comedy masters and re-presented to modern audiences.

[Dylan]

some of the matte painting work and optical printer work is truly first class.

A lot of the same effects people worked on The Outer Limits TV series. Although uncredited, the stop-motion animation is by Jim Danforth, but he told me himself that pretty much all of the stop-motion save for a second (about a second?) was cut. Was any of that found and included in the extended cut? All of it would've been for the climactic scene (Jim is on the left):

[Moe Dickstein]

There is a good deal of discussion of that section of FX in the Sound and Vision feature. I wouldn't want to 100% say what was stop motion or not in the finale, but I don't believe there is any footage added to the fire ladder sequence

[ptatler]

One of my favorite film bloggers (Bill Ryan) has a great piece today that nicely sums up my feelings on MAD X 4 (and Stanley Kramer in general)...

[swo17]

Those last two paragraphs about comedy supposedly being critic-proof (an idea that's certainly propagated on this forum) are quite illuminating.

[criterion10]

Criterion just posted their Three Reasons video for the film.

[Moe Dickstein]

1 and 2 are almost the same thing. Guess they had to strain for that third reason.

[ptatler]

Why wasn't "Moe Dickstein" one of the reasons?

[Moe Dickstein]

awww. *blush*

[swo17]

Reason #4: So that Moe will give Peter Becker his daughter back.

[captveg]

You know, I get all the criticisms. Then I watch that Three Reasons video and I laugh at the film, several times. Sometimes one just enjoys a comedy even knowing it has major issues and is stupid. That's why I love Hot Rod, for instance. With some comedies, I almost find myself in three phases: 1) Laughing at the jokes instinctively, 2) Questioning why I'm laughing because of all the critical views that have been pointed out to me and are, basically, accurate, 3) Laughing anyway because despite #2 I still find it funny. Sue me.

[Moe Dickstein]

You should have went with Turrell - Becker is the one that got this film in the collection.