The Great Race

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Image:GreatRace.jpg The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy movie directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan.

It stars Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Keenan Wynn and Peter Falk.

It tells the story of an car race in 1908 between New York and Paris in which two of the contestants, the evil Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) and his sidekick, Max (Peter Falk), try to get rid of the rest of motorists by means of nefarious sabotage. The only racer who can escape their evil plots is Fate's nemesis, The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis), driving the Leslie Special with the help of his mechanic, Hezekiah (Keenan Wynn), and Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood), a spunky journalist/suffragette whose entry was eliminated early in the race.

Jack Lemmon plays two very different characters in the film: aside from Professor Fate, he also plays Crown Prince Frederick Hapnick, a silly, consistently drunk monarch who becomes the victim of a conspiracy plot using Fate as a double.

The film was a major influence on Wacky Races, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. The film's characterizations were themselves rather cartoonish. Furthermore, film editor and sound-effects man Treg Brown, who worked on many classic Warner Brothers cartoons, worked on this film, and many sound effects will be familiar to cartoon fans.

The film features what was reputedly the largest pie fight in film history.

The film is dedicated "To Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy".

There was an actual automobile race staged in 1908 from New York to Paris, before actual racing over public roads (as opposed to rallying) was made illegal due to the danger and the increasing volume of traffic. However, it was merely the inspiration for this film; the events depicted in the film are in no way related to the actual events of the race, which have been documented in at least three books, written, respectively, by members of the three teams that finished the real race. Those books are:

The Longest Auto Race (pub. 1966) by Shuster, the driver of the US entry;

Il giro del mondo in automobile (pub. 1910) by Antonio Scarfolgio the driver for the Italian team;

Im Auto um die Welt (pub. 1909) by the German driver, Koeppen.

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Quotes

"As a very wise English gentleman once said, 'He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day'. So, until another day, Mr. Leslie, please excuse me." ~Baron von Stuppe (Ross Martin), preceding a perfect swan dive through his boat.

"I never mix my pies. I want to play, too." ~Crown Prince Frederick Hapnick (Jack Lemmon) as he enters the pie fight.

"It's been my experience, General, that there is little advantage to winning if one wins too easily." ~The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) to General Kuhster (George Macready) after Leslie arrives in Potsdorf.

"In my profession, to win is imperative; to win easily is a blessing." ~General Kuhster's reply to the Great Leslie.

"Rise and shine? You rise, you shine! Rise and shine..." ~Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon), after Max (Peter Falk) tries to wake him up in The Leslie Special.

"If you don't leave this car immediately, I shall personally feed you to the bear." ~The Great Leslie to Professor Fate, after Fate falls through the roof of the Leslie Special in the middle of a snowstorm.

"You talk a good fight, but when it comes down to it, you're as emancipated as a confirmed spinster in a knitting bee." ~The Great Leslie to Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood) as they approach the finish line in Paris.