by Tommy Hayfield

Created on: June 30, 2010

The Great Race directed by Blake Edwards was a long and fun-filled movie that featured many of Hollywood's big stars including Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Keenan Wynn.   Larry Storch who many people remember from the tv show 'F Troop' played a character named Texas Jack.  Peter Falk who is perhaps better know as 'Colombo' on TV played Professor Fate's assistant and saboteur.  The colorful outfits of the turn of the 20th century were featured in this movie and all the contraptions involved in the stunts were also made to appear like they were of the era around the turn of the 20th century. 

Tony Curtis played The Great Leslie who was an escape artist who wore white throughout the movie and occasionally had a gleam of light reflect from his perfect smile.  Jack Lemmon who was his nemesis always tried to sabotage The Great Leslie's stunts and they invariably blew up in his own face.  In one instance The Great Leslie was racing in a speed boat and Professor Fate and his assistant Max (Peter Falk) sent a guided missile at him.  The missile redirected after Professor Fate's car backfired and it came aground and chased down and blew up his car-OUCH!  The trans-national race eventually ensued and Natalie Woods who played Maggie Dubois decided that as a reporter she could best cover the race by entering it herself.  The race was a wonderful spectacle as was the whole movie with throwback cars and contraptions showing up at nearly every change of venue.  The race went from New York to Paris and stopped in many rural locations in between.  The race featured scenes that were filmed in Paris and the end of the race was no surprise.  Jack Lemmon's Character Professor Fate didn't win the race.  He had in fact been sabotaging the other cars the entire duration of the race.  

A song from the movie received an Oscar nomination.  Many songs from the movie reminded me of songs from Mel Brooks' movies which isn't surprising since the comedy pursuits of Blake Edwards and Brooks have common elements.  Jack Lemmon has a lot of funny lines in this movie as does Tony Curtis and Natalie Woods.  The movie was  merry and full of a lot of carnival-type music that is always light and fun.  Jack Lemmon was outrageously laughing and screaming and reacting in every scene-the movie is something you don't see a lot of today.  It's worth a second or third viewing.  The movie runs 160 minutes.  It didn't seem like that long because it's so fun.  I viewed the movie on Turner Classic Movies.

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