It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) is a comedy that followed the Hollywood trend in the 1960s of producing "gigantic" and "epic" films as a way to woo audiences into movie theaters. Television had sapped the regular moviegoing audience and box office revenues were dropping, and the major studios experimented with a number of "gimmicks" to attract audiences, including widescreen films.

Not only was It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World filmed in Cinerama (the biggest of the widescreen cinema technologies), it also had an all-star cast, with literally dozens of major comedy stars from all eras of cinema making appearances in the film.

Stars of this film included:

• Edie Adams[?]
• Eddie Anderson
• Milton Berle
• Sid Caesar
• Jimmie Durante
• Peter Falk
• Buddy Hackett
• Ethel Merman
• Mickey Rooney
• Dick Shawn[?]
• Phil Silvers[?]
• Terry-Thomas
• Spencer Tracy
• Jonathan Winters

There were also cameo appearances by:

• Jack Benny
• Buster Keaton
• Jerry Lewis
• and the Three Stooges

The plot of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World follows the occupants of four vehicles who stop to help a man who has just careened off the highway. With his dying breaths, the man tells the bystanders about $350,000 that he hid in the town of Santa Rosita, less than a day's drive away, under “the big W”. A wild race across the desert follows, as each carload of people tries to be first to find the money and claim it for themselves.

Rat Race[?], a film made in 2001, has a similar basic premise.