Not Mad About ‘World’

Regarding the current “Rat Race” and the 1963 “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” (Morning Report, Aug. 25):

Stanley Kramer’s widow, Karen Kramer, is, of course, entitled to refer to her husband’s film as “a brilliant classic,” but in fact “Mad Mad World” is an overblown bore that was seen as such when it first came out and has not improved with age. Kramer was a well-meaning, earnest fellow who produced and directed some important films, but well-meaningness and earnestness are the enemies of comedy, and “Mad Mad World” proved it.

Kramer managed to take some of the greatest comedians in the world (Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Buster Keaton, et al) and make them totally unfunny by following a sledgehammer approach that said if you get enough quantity, quality will follow. It didn’t happen. I invite anyone who thinks I’m wrong to view “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” for themselves.

True, it had no “cursing and sex,” as Sid Caesar says, but it had very few laughs either.

JONATHAN AURTHUR

Santa Monica