With this all-star Cinerama epic, producer/director
Stanley Kramer vowed to make "the comedy that would end all comedies." The story begins during a massive traffic jam, caused by reckless driver Smiler Grogan (
Jimmy Durante), who, before (literally) kicking the bucket, cryptically tells the assembled drivers that he's buried a fortune in stolen loot, "under the Big W." The various motorists setting out on a mad scramble include a dentist (
Sid Caesar) and his wife (
Edie Adams); a henpecked husband (
Milton Berle) accompanied by his mother-in-law (
Ethel Merman) and his beatnik brother-in-law (
Dick Shawn); a pair of comedy writers (
Buddy Hackett and
Mickey Rooney); and a variety of assorted nuts including a slow-wit (
Jonathan Winters), a wheeler-dealer (
Phil Silvers), and a pair of covetous cabdrivers (
Peter Falk and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson). Monitoring every move that the fortune hunters make is a scrupulously honest police detective (
Spencer Tracy). Virtually every lead, supporting, and bit part in the picture is filled by a well-known comic actor: the laughspinning lineup also includes
Carl Reiner,
Terry-Thomas,
Arnold Stang,
Buster Keaton,
Jack Benny,
Jerry Lewis, and
The Three Stooges, who get one of the picture's biggest laughs by standing stock still and uttering not a word. Two prominent comedians are conspicuous by their absence:
Groucho Marx refused to appear when Kramer couldn't meet his price, while
Stan Laurel declined because he felt he was too old-looking to be funny. Available for years in its 154-minute general release version, the film was restored to its roadshow length of 175 minutes on home video; the search goes on for a missing
Buster Keaton routine, reportedly excised on the eve of the picture's premiere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide