A Movie Nearly Every Night: The Great Race

The Great Race (1965)
Dir. Blake Edwards
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk


As tribute to Blake Edwards, I could have picked from his Pink Panther series or Victor/Victoria or even the serious well-made films like The Days of Wine and Roses, but rather than retrospect his career I decided to focus on a single movie because it made such an indelible imprint on my childhood.

At least one a year, usually during a holiday weekend like Thanksgiving or Christmas, KTLA in Los Angeles would show The Great Race. I don't think we ever missed it. When VCR's came out it was one of the first movies we taped from television, but by then my whole family had it memorized and could easily re-enact any scene on request.

Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) readies his cigar

This movie is like a jolly family member that visits for dinner one night every year and leaves you happy and waiting with expectation for his next visit. Maybe he brings cake. Maybe he just makes you laugh. Maybe you fall asleep before he finishes his story, but you know he'll come back next year and tell the same story and then you'll be old enough to hear it all the way through.

Fate and Max (Peter Falk) --Push the button, Max.

Yes, it's a very silly movie. No, it doesn't mean a thing. There are no great messages to impart, no deep study of film technique to be gained from it -- it's just Blake Edwards taking elements from other silly movies and rolling them into a brilliant confection that tastes sweet year after year:

It's got salty dance hall dames in western towns,

"He shouldna' hadna' oughtna' swang on me"

Swordfights,

"He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
So until another day, Mr. Leslie.
I have a boat. waiting."

Pie fights,

"Brandy. THROW MORE BRANDY!"

Saloon fights,

How not to light a match against your teeth.

And even a sing-a-long.

When I saw this at the LA County Museum of Art, the audience really did sing along

It's got good guys in white and bad guys in black and sometimes they have to share a living space --- but who hasn't had to experience that at least once in their lives, right?

"He always yells like this in the morning."

But most of all, deep in the silliness, we learned a lot from this movie as kids:

How to get a job in journalism for instance.

Has it really changed over the years?

Why you don't want to yell "HEY PROFESSOR!" during a pie fight.


How to deal with disloyal members of your staff when you're the monarch of a small country.

"I'm getting a new tucker-inner. You're banished, banished, banished."

That you should always laugh even while others disapprove.

"Someone who looks like me? Poor fellow! Wah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

And, no matter what's happening, always pose for the camera.


This was not one of Blake's biggest box office winners. In fact, in 1965 it was considered kind of a stinker, but I think it was just released at the wrong time. So much was changing in 1965. Movies were getting serious --- I mean, honestly, The Sound of Music is a musical, but it's got nuns falling for whistle-blowing military men and it ends with a perilous mountain escape from invading Nazis --- and fun fluff like this didn't appeal to people wanting to grapple with deeper issues past and present. Even Cat Ballou had death and its repercussions. No one dies in The Great Race (although you wonder a little about what happens to Baron von Stuppe after he "fights and runs away"), but the "message" doesn't get any deeper than man + woman = marriage.

Oh, and that you can't really save time by following the railroad tracks.
Good to know.

So, sure, it's a cartoon when the world was turning serious. This is all well and good and quaint, but what does it say about Vietnam?

"Get off of the bed!" a statement aimed at Western imperialism?
Nope, just at pugs.

But for kids of my generation, this movie came a long at the right time. I know so many people my age who watched it with their families every time it was on television and they can quote as many lines from it as I can:

"Red sky in morning, sailor take warning.""Why you simple-headed gherkin, do you know the chances of a storm in this part of world at this time of year?""No, what?""A hundred to one!"

"May I present Baron Rolfe von Stuppe. His prowess with the blade is surpassed only by his reputation with the ladies."

"Brrrrrrrrrrrrrranday!"

"I ain't no native! I was born here!"

"That would make quite a story for your competition: Woman Starves in Men's Room of the New York Sentinel!"

"Come on, professor, up and at 'em. It's 7:30." "UP and AT 'EM?!?" "It's 7:30, rise and shine." "YOU rise. YOU shine."

And, possibly the best line in the history of comic film:

"Leslie escaped with a chicken?!?"

Dear Mr. Edwards,
You don't remember me, but I once rang up your wife's copies of Majesty and Royalty magazines at Rizzoli, South Coast Plaza. I could barely make change for you because there was so much I wanted to say. The same thing happened years later with Peter Falk. That's some kind of crazy voodoo and it all comes from living so long with this movie, my family friend, my close kin.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

Love,
Li'l Hateful