If ever this mad, mad, mad, mad world needed "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world" it's now! (1970 re-release)
Plot outline
Personal notes
Cast
- Spencer Tracy
- Milton Berle
- Sid Caesar
- Buddy Hackett
- Ethel Merman
- Mickey Rooney
- Dick Shawn
- Phil Silvers
- Terry-Thomas
- Jonathan Winters
- Edie Adams
- Dorothy Provine
- Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson
- Jim Backus
- Ben Blue
- Joe E. Brown
- Alan Carney
- Chick Chandler
- Barrie Chase
- Lloyd Corrigan
- William Demarest
- Andy Devine
- Selma Diamond
- Peter Falk
- Norman Fell
- Paul Ford
- Stan Freberg
- Louise Glenn
- Leo Gorcey
- Sterling Holloway
- Marvin Kaplan
- Edward Everett Horton
- Buster Keaton
- Don Knotts
- Charles Lane
- Mike Mazurki
- Charles McGraw
- Cliff Norton
- Zasu Pitts
- Carl Reiner
- Madlyn Rhue
- Roy Roberts
- Arnold Stang
- Nick Stewart
- The Three Stooges
- Sammee Tong
- Jesse White
- Jimmy Durante
- Morey Amsterdam
- Wayne Anderson
- Gordon Armitage
- Phil Arnold
- Al Bain
- Jack Benny
- Paul Birch
- Lovyss Bradley
- George Bruggeman
- Albert Cavens
- Noble 'Kid' Chissell
- John Clarke
- Stanley Clements
- Joe DeRita
- King Donovan
- Minta Durfee
- Roy Engel
- Larry Fine
- James Flavin
- Sig Frohlich
- Nicholas Georgiade
- Rudy Germane
- Bobby Gilbert
- Stacy Harris
- Don C. Harvey
- Al Haskell
- Moe Howard
- John Indrisano
- Allen Jenkins
- Robert Karnes
- Tom Kennedy
- Harry Lauter
- Ben Lessy
- Bobo Lewis
- Jerry Lewis
- Tyler McVey
- Ralph Moratz
- Monty O'Grady
- Barbara Pepper
- Anthony Redondo
- Elliott Reid
- Eddie Rosson
- George Russell
- Eddie Ryder
- Jean Sewell
- Charles Sherlock
- Eddie Smith
- Cap Somers
- Paul Sorensen
- Ray Spiker
- Max Wagner
- David Ward
- Doodles Weaver
- Lennie Weinrib
- James Young
Plots
A group of motorists hear about a crook's hidden stash of loot, and race against each other across the country to get to it.
The story begins during a massive traffic jam, caused by reckless driver Smiler Grogan, who, before kicking the bucket, cryptically tells the assembled drivers that he's buried a fortune in stolen loot, under the Big W. All of the motorists set out to find the fortune.
After a long prison sentence Smiler Grogan is heading at high speed to a California park where he hid $350,000 from a job 15 years previously. He accidentally careens over a cliff in view of four cars whose occupants go down to help. The dying Grogan gives details of where the money is buried and when the witnesses fail to agree on sharing the cash, a crazy chase develops across the state.
Blockbuster comedy. Brilliantly simple, the plot concerns a caravan of motorists who witness a terrible accident on a dangerously winding California desert highway. The auto-crash victim, Smiler Grogan, reveals in his dying words that he has hidden a fortune of stolen cash, sending the drivers on a rambunctious race to see who can claim the loot first!
Somewhere in the desert. A car speeds like crazy along the roads. Suddenly, the driver loses control and sails off a cliff. Four other vehicles are near, they stop to help. The dying man narrates the drivers of a fortune in cash, $350,000, which he has hidden below a giant "W" in Santa Rosita, some 200 miles away. The four drivers and their respective passengers can't decide on how to share the future fortune, and suddenly a wild race to Santa Rosita develops. While one party manages to rent a plane (from 1916), the others face different problems like tire damage, untrustworthy lifts, deep water, drunken millionaires, a British adventurer, little girl's bicycles, and last but far not least a mother-in-law from hell and her imbecile son. While the folks slowly travel towards the goal, they are being watched. Who ever said that nobody else knew about the fortune?