This Blake Edwards 1960s comedy, The Great Race (1965) has been on my radar for a long time but I finally caught up to it. This show came at the end of the line for big budget roadshow movies. The money spent here is on full display with tons of pricey location shooting and practical special effects.
This movie, along with some other ones of its kind, really pulls out all the stops to be a live-action cartoon, at least where its gags and action set pieces are concerned. On the other hand, the film has a definite nostalgia (there's even a dedication to Laurel and Hardy at the beginning) feeling going on, something that audiences of the 60s likely would have grasped, or at least had an inkling of from their parents. The early silent movie era feel is strong. Hell, there's even a song break, complete with a follow-the-bouncing-ball graphic.
Curtis plays the shining (literally) lead here as well as you'd expect. Curtis also gets to do a sword fight with his shirt off (Shatner eat your heart out!). Lemmon gets to have the most fun with his totally over-the-top performance as the mustache-twirling villain. Lemmon's acting can be grating in this movie (that laugh) but I have to think this is what Blake Edwards was after. There's also a pretty apparent gay relationship between Lemmon and Falk's characters if you look for it.
Natalie Wood, for me, is the standout. Wood gets to do more than be the love interest, though the Suffragette side plot is pretty clumsy, and is always charming. She also looks amazing throughout the show with a large number of costume changes.
I think this was just too long and overblown for me. The humor and expensive look of the show just had trouble sustaining everything. Dad was fond of movies like this. As usual, it would be interesting to ask him how this one held up as I suspect he saw it during its original run.
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