Friday night, January 29: The Egyptian Theater is running It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I mention this because I'm always telling people that though the DVD/Blu-ray of this movie is wonderful, it's a film best experienced on a big screen with a big audience. If you've never seen it that way, here's a chance to see it that way. Tickets can be ordered here.
If you don't live near Hollywood, keep your eye on the schedules of local theaters that show this kind of thing. It's very popular on that circuit so someone near you will probably be running it soon.
Full Disclosure: I am heard on the very, very long commentary track on the Criterion release of this film, which is the one I'm talking about. Order a copy and then after you see the movie on the big screen in its shorter version, go home and watch the longer version with the commentary track turned on so you can hear Mike Schlesinger, Paul Scrabo and Yours Truly tell you more about this picture than you'd imagine any three sentient human beings could possibly know.
And while I'm at it, here's something we couldn't squeeze into the commentary track. The photos above are of the actor Stacy Harris, who had a long career on radio, movies and television usually playing tough guys in crime dramas. If you recognize him from anywhere, it's probably from the sixties incarnation of Dragnet where he turned up about every third week and he was usually very, very guilty.
Anyway, he was another uncredited cast member of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He did voiceovers for police officers on the radio during the intermission and he was heard during the film about an hour and thirty-one minutes in, reporting that the Krumps got themselves locked in the hardware store. His is the voice about which people keep asking me, "Was that Walter Matthau?" No, it was Stacy Harris. He was also seen on-camera for about a half a second. He's one of the two men outside the hardware store who restrains Edward Everett Horton when he starts yelling at Sid Caesar and Edie Adams. You could not go another minute through your life without knowing this.