'The Great Race' - Movie Review

"The Great Race" stars Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood (and Peter Falk, younger than I've ever seen him) in what amounts to a live action Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote. Lemmon is the dastardly black-clad Professor Fate, Curtis is charming to all, dressed in white, and has a smile that sparkles, and Wood is the epitome of a Suffragette determined to prove women are equal in all things. Pies are flung, mud pits are fallen in, a melting iceberg is ridden. And in the middle, we have a significant "Prisoner of Zenda" interlude in which political intrigue surrounds one of our main characters who looks identical to a prince.

Sequential sketch comedy reminiscent of Mel Brooks, although less crude. All in the service of a ludicrous plot about an automobile race around the world, it delivers some laughs, but to me the failure to deliver the slightest drama, plot, or even marginally realistic characters is a failing. Given that it's a slapstick comedy, this is a rather silly requirement and the movie may well work for others: but I didn't think it entirely delivered in the comedy department either.