For the past twenty years Ive been trying to figure outwhyits not funny.
It makes no sense, right?
By all accounts it shouldve been the funniest goddamn movie ever made.
Along the way almost every conceivable genre got the sprawling, three-hour, all-star, cast of thousands treatment.
It seemed such an obvious, inevitable, and great idea.
If people were willing to sit through a three-hour Biblical epic, why not a three-hour slapstick comedy?
Itd sure be easier to take than all those thys and thous.
Sure, the finished cut ran three hours and 12 minutes, but it couldnt miss.
So in 1965 Blake Edwards releasedThe Great Race.
The premise was a car race from New York to Paris.
The cast included Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, and Keenan Wynn.
The originalCasino Royalefrom 1967 had little to do with IanFlemings original James Bond novel.
I cant tell you how long this one runs.
It felt like forever, and Ive never made it to the end.
The era of the epic comedy pretty much came to a sad and whimpering close in 1970 withCatch-22.
Plus an Italian setting, a WWII backdrop, and zaniness to spare.
Yet for all the collective comic genius involved in the above films, none of them are funny.
The one possible exception isThe Russians are Coming!
The Russians are Coming!, but that one only half counts anyway.
Maybe thats why the films darker material works so much better than the easy yuks.
But that seems to be about as far as he got in his planning before he began shooting.
Thats all he needed, right?
Big names and a solid premise?
Yeah, well, and as a result the film was about as funny as any of the others.
Difference was, this time around the crowds werent there to pretend otherwise.
Epic comedies are doomed by their very nature, and heres why.
Start with that basic formula.
Then you sign up every big actor in the world.
Yeah, that aint gonna happen.
Comic tension doesnt last that long.
In the end its far better (and funnier) to watchDr.
Strangelovefor the 34th time than to watch any of these bloated epics for a second.
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