The Great Race (Warner Bros.) (1965)

Ah! That Tony Curtis! He Gets The Gal And Garners Guffaws in ‘The Great Race’ After 40 motion pictures, ranging from musical to madcap, Tony Curtis has found the ideal role to challenge his many talents— brave, noble, daring, dramatic, funny. Curtis takes on his dream characterization playing the epitome of motion picture heroes, Leslie Gallant III, in Blake Edwards’ “The Great Race,” comedy extravaganza for Warner Bros., starting at the Be Ea Theatre. The gigantic comedy adventure, in Technicolor and Panavision, also stars Jack Lemmon (as the villain’s villain), Natalie Wood, Keenan Wynn and Peter Falk. Martin Jurow produced the attraction. In “The Great Race,” Curtis sets out to prove he can do everything better than everyone else — and does, as a good hero should. Always dressed in white, for black is the color of a true villain, Curtis treats all courteously and considerately — even World's Wildest adventurous, and uproariously his enemies, whom he battles with formidable precision and colorful improvisation. For Curtis, the entire enterprise was a wild, joyful experience. Besides being the irreproachable hero, he engages in flashy acrobatics that delight him. One of Hollywood’s most devoted car buffs, he also drives a fantastic hand-made automobile in breakneck competition with Lemmon, in the wildest auto race ever filmed, New York to Paris. Daredevil dramatics? Well, for openers, Curtis dangles by his heels from the gondola of a balloon, races motorboats crazily, swims a cold Austrian lake, leaps castle ramparts. Cars Set Mad Moil in Zany ‘The Great Race’ The century’s most astonishing automobiles, original, incredible and awesome, perform with scene-snatching precision in the hands of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Warner Bros.’ extravaganza-on-wheels, “The Great Race,” Blake Edwards’ new Bungler Peter Falk as Villain No. 2, bungles his way into laugh after laugh in “The Great Race,” the Warner Bros.’ comedy hit directed by Blake Edwards and co-starring Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood and Jack Lemmon in Technicolor and Panavision at the ..... Theatre, Mat 1-D_ Still No, 479/648 (Special Publicity Still) Cartoonist’s View Of ‘The Great Race’ motion picture in Technicolor and Panavision, which is due to start.... at the Theatre. The cars are in riotous competition in a race from New York to Paris, and from the first explosive blastoff to the roaring finish at the Eiffel Tower, they are machines of character and distinction. Since Tony is the hero and Jack the villain, their respective cars match their owners’ moods. They were built by Warner Bros. studio craftsmen under the affectionate supervision of Danny Lee, special effects expert, and art director Ferdie Carrere — with a sharp eye to the characters they play. Tony’s Leslie Special, for instance, is long, lush, white and shining. It is a phaeton with red leather seats and brass wickerwork decor, and it is laden with white luggage to match the white costumes and spirit of its driver. Its seats may be made up into a comfy bed, an accomplishment which is taken advantage of as Tony, accompanied by Natalie Wood, is stranded in an Arctic blizzard. They share their cozy accommodations with the villain and an uninvited polar bear and several magnums of champagne. On the other hand, take Jack Lemmon’s Hannibal Straight Eight. It is, indeed, a black monster right out of an Indianapolis nightmare. It is equipped with a hidden cannon which pops out to blast enemies; it carries a fiery nose cone (for burning through icebergs or roasting wienies) , and a multi-colored smoke screen device to confuse opponents. a (ppm. | Noble Hero Heroic Tony Curtis is truly noble as Leslie Gallant Il, who foils the evil doings of Jack Lemmon in the “The Great Race” a Warner Bros.’ comedy extravaganza directed by Blake Edwards in Technicolor-Panavision with Natalie Wood as the cuddlesome, cigar-smoking heroine. The film opens..... avthe. 2.3: Theatre. Mat 1-A(P) Still No. 479/687 (Special Publicity Still) Dramatic O’Connell Is Deft Farceur Arthur O’Connell specializes in making classics of dramatic character roles, aided by his distinguished appearance. Yet, he is equally adept at comedy — subtle to slapstick. In Warner Bros.’ “The Great Race,” Okie, as O’Connell is called, runs the range, portraying an extraordinary New York newspaper editor, vintage 1908, in the Blake Edwards comedy extravaganza, directed by Edwards and produced by Martin Jurow, opening...at the ...Theatre. As an anti-feminist in the Technicolor-Panavision auto race comedy, he is harassed by reporter Natalie Wood, a raving suffragette, and Vivian Vance, his wife who joins the women’s rights movement. For partial respite, he assigns Natalie to cover the zaniest automobile race ever held — New York to Paris — between hero Tony Curtis and villain Jack Lemmon. Recipient of two Academy Award nominations for his excellent characterizations, O’Connell made _ his screen debut in 1941. Famous cartoonist Al Hirschfeld was turned loose by Warner Bros. to draw his impressions of “The Great Race,” the wild comedy in Technicolor and Panavision which opens at the ..... Theatre. The cartoonist came up with this incisive scene which shows star Natalie Wood in a state of distress and partial undress on an ice floe in the Bering Straits while fellow stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon search for help and fish for food. In the background are the two crazy cars which have brought them to this point and are themselves stranded. Blake Edwards directed “The Great Race.” Mat 3-A_ Still No. 479/C-1 Jack Lemmon Likes Being Bad —It's Such Good Clean Fun “No doubt about it, being bad is good, clean fun,” comments Jack Lemmon on screen villainy. “Anything goes. It’s great.” Lemmon sneers, snarls and casts evil eyes as the consummate villain, Professor Fate, in “The Great Race,” Blake Edwards’ comedy extravaganza for Warner Bros., directed by Edwards and produced by Martin Jurow, starting at the Theatre. “IT can smile crookedly, laugh ferociously, frown constantly,” Lemmon says of his black-cloaked, blackhearted role in the production, filmed in Technicolor and Panavision. “It’s an all-out exercise in badness.” As Professor Fate, Lemmon engages hero Tony Curtis in unending competitive exploits, climaxed by a mad auto race from New York to Paris. During the race, Lemmon uses against Curtis every dirty trick devised, even kidnapping lovely Natalie Wood. Continuously thwarted, however, the villain turns into a writhing mass of frustrated hate. All is played for laughs, naturally. “Luckily, I’m the kind of villain people can hiss with pleasure,’ notes Lemmon. “It’s easier to sympathize with a blackguard who is so blatantly villainous. There’s nothing subtle about Fate — he’s just plain horrible.” Surely, for the physical punishment Lemmon endured in filming this ad Gags All the Way In ‘The Great Race’ Shakespeare once suggested “laugh yourself into stitches” ... and “The Great Race” sews up how] after howl as the Warner Bros.’ comedy hit, in Technicolor and Panavision, scores its mad, merry way across the..... Theatre screen, on ...... With Tony Curtis, as the noble hero whose white costume betokens his purity of soul and heart, and Jack Lemmon, the dark-draped villain with a heart and mind as black as his deeds, “The Great Race” pits the stars into a hilarious auto race around the world from New York to Paris by way of Bering Strait, for fame, fortune .. . and the cigar-smoking sophistication of suffragette-reporter Natalie Wood. Under the direction of Blake Edwards, the gags run a zany course, from a custard pie-throwing sequences that would bring cheers from Mack Sennett, to hilarious derring-do on balloons, in the desert and unstable ice floes. Through this madcap course, Curtis and Lemmon keep a steady, and sometimes unsteady course sided and abetted in their lunatic shenanigans by Keenan Wynn and Peter Falk. Keeping the pace on a hectically zooming level is the musical score penned by Academy Award winner Henry Mancini. The Lady Gets Pie-Eyed venture in beastliness, he deserves the season’s endurance trophy. There was hardly a working day during the seven months of filming that he wasn’t pummeled, dirtied, punched, whacked, pinched, slammed and pushed while exercising his inept villainy. For five days, he was completely covered with loathsome gobs of cream, in filming the screen’s greatest pie fight. “Pie in the face may look funny,” he says, “but a little goes a long way. After a while your eyes begin to burn, the filling hardens, and the impact feels more like marbles than chocolate mousse.” Everlastingly civil, unruffled, he went about his work, manifesting good humor and understanding. Yet, Lemmon instantly shed his off-stage poise to pick up his madcap antics on camera. Casting reason and serenity aside, Lemmon hurtled himself into the Professor Fate role with the ferocity of a schizophrenic rhino. | Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Jack Lemmon earns his hisses as the deep-dyed villain in the Warner Bros.’ new comedy, “The Great Race,” in Technicolor and Panavision, opening .... at the Theatre. Tony Curtis is the gallant hero and Natalie Wood is the lovely heroine in this mad story of a wild ’round the world auto race directed by Blake Edwards. Mat 1-B Still No. 479/606 (Special Publicity Still) Pies away—in that good old Mack Sennett tradition—finds Natalie Wood on the receiving end of custardy goo in one of the hilarious scenes that pile laughs on laughs in Warner Bros.’ comedy extravaganza, ““The Great Race’’, in Technicolor and Panavision, which is set to open ...... at the ’..:.... Theatre. Directed by Blake Edwards, Jack Lemmon is the villainous counterpart to noble Tony Curtis and Keenan Wynn and Peter Falk are assistants. Mat 2-A(P) Still No. 479/198 PAGE 3