Delightful and very funny classic action/adventure comedy from director Blake Edwards (The Pink Panther; 10) about an early 20th century car race across three...... more
Delightful and very funny classic action/adventure comedy from director Blake Edwards (The Pink Panther; 10) about an early 20th century car race across three continents. Packed full of sight gags, madcap humour, stunning large-scale set pieces, wonderful funny characters, great performances by the whole cast and to top it all, some
songs including Natalie Wood performing (not singing - she was dubbed by the uncredited
Jackie Ward), the hauntingly lovely
song 'The Sweetheart Tree'. Starring Tony Curtis (Houdini; Some Like It Hot; The Boston Strangler) as professional daredevil and white-suited hero, The Great Leslie (hurrah !!!) who , convinces turn-of-the-century auto makers that a race from New York to
Paris (westward across America, the Bering Straight and Russia) will help to promote automobile sales. Jack Lemmon (Some Like It Hot; The Apartment; The Odd Couple; Missing; Grumpy Old Men) plays Leslie's arch-rival, the mustached and black-attired Professor Fate (boo !!!) who vows to beat Leslie to the finish line in a car of Fate's own invention. Natalie Wood (The Searchers; Splendour in the Grass; Gypsy; Inside Daisy Clover; Brainstorm)
is a delight as cheroot-puffing suffragette Maggie Dubois who forces the poor owner of the newspaper to allow her to cover the race. Lastly but by no means least there's Keenan Wynn (The War Wagon) as The Great Leslie's loyal assistant, whilst Peter Falk (Anzio; The In-Laws; Tv's - Columbo) scores heavily as Fate's dimwit assistant. Trivia note: The film carries a dedication to Laurel and Hardy which appears at
the beginning of the film, and Edwards' tribute to Stan and Ollie can be seen most clearly in the interaction between Professor Fate and his cohort Max, as well as in the operatic Pottsdorf pie fight. Finally the opening and closing credit sequences are very cleverly done to resemble the old magic lantern slide shows. Without doubt it's an overlooked gem !.
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