It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Criterion Collection) (DVD)

Stanley Kramer followed his Oscar-winning Judgment at Nuremberg with this sobering investigation of American greed. Ah, who are we kidding? It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, about a group of strangers fighting tooth and nail over buried treasure, is the most grandly harebrained movie ever made, a pileup of slapstick and borscht-belt-y one-liners performed by a nonpareil cast, including Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracy, Jonathan Winters, and a boatload of other playing-to-the-rafters comedy legends. For sheer scale of silliness, Kramer's wildly uncharacteristic film is unlike any other, an exhilarating epic of tomfoolery.

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Curly Joe DeRita, Don C. Harvey, John Zaccaro, Minta Durfee, Edie Adams, Dorothy Provine, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Jim Backus, Ben Blue, Alan Carney, Barrie Chase, William Demarest, Peter Falk, Larry Fine, Buster Keaton, The Three Stooges, Joe E. Brown, Moe Howard, Marvin Kaplan, Charles Lane, Howard Da Silva, Charles McGraw, ZaSu Pitts, Jesse White, Ben Lessy, Bobo Lewis, Mike Mazurki, Nick Stuart, Stanley Clements, Jimmy Durante, Allen Jenkins, Harry Lauter, Doodles Weaver, Tom Kennedy, Eddie Ryder, Don Harvey, Roy Engel, Paul Birch, Jerry Lewis, Chick Chandler, Barbara Pepper, Cliff Norton, Roy Roberts

Director: Stanley Kramer