Великая гонка

1965 film by Blake Edwards

The Great Race is a 1965 American Technicolor epic slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Arthur A. Ross (from a story by Edwards and Ross), and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, Arthur O'Connell and Vivian Vance. The movie cost US$12 million (equivalent to $98.36 million in 2020), making it the most expensive comedy film at the time. It is known for one scene that was promoted as "the greatest pie fight ever". It was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects.

The Great Leslie and Professor Fate are competing daredevils at the turn of the 20th century. Leslie is the classic hero archetype – always dressed in white, handsome, ever courteous, enormously talented and successful. Leslie's nemesis, Fate, is the traditional melodramatic villain – usually dressed in black, sporting a black moustache and top hat, glowering at almost everyone, possessing a maniacal evil laugh, filled with grandiose plans to thwart the hero, and dogged by failure. Leslie proposes an automobile race from New York City to Paris and offers the Webber Motor Car Company the opportunity to build an automobile to make the journey. They design and build a new car for him, "The Leslie Special". Fate builds his own car, "The Hannibal Twin 8", complete with hidden devices of sabotage. Other car owners enter the race, including one owned by New York City's most prominent newspaper. Driving the newspaper's car is beautiful photojournalist Maggie DuBois, a vocal suffragist. A seven car race begins, but Fate's long suffering sidekick Maximilian Meen has sabotaged four other cars (and his own, by mistake), leaving just three cars in the race. The surviving teams are Leslie with his loyal valet Hezekiah Sturdy, Maggie DuBois driving a Stanley Steamer by herself, and Fate and Max. The steamer car breaks down and Maggie accepts a lift in the Leslie Special. Fate arrives first at a refueling point, the small Western frontier town of Boracho. A local outlaw named "Texas Jack" becomes jealous of the attraction to Leslie shown by showgirl Lily Olay and a saloon brawl ensues. Fate sneaks outside amidst the chaos, steals the fuel he needs, and destroys the rest. Leslie uses mules to pull his car to another refueling point, where Maggie tricks Hezekiah into boarding a train and handcuffs him to a seat, lying to Leslie that Hezekiah had quit and "wanted to go back to New York". The two remaining cars reach the Bering Strait and park side by side in a blinding snowstorm. Keeping warm during the storm, Leslie and Maggie begin to see each other as more than competitors. Mishaps, including a polar bear in Fate's car, compel all four racers to warm themselves in Leslie's car. They awaken on a small ice floe which drifts into their intended Russian port, where Hezekiah is waiting for Leslie, who in turn casts off Maggie for deceiving him. Maggie is snatched by Fate, who drives off in the lead. After driving across Asia, both cars enter the tiny kingdom of Carpania, whose alcoholic and foppish Crown Prince Friedrich Hapnick is the spitting image of Professor Fate. Plotters under the leadership of Baron Rolfe von Stuppe and General Kuhster kidnap the Prince, Fate, Max, and Maggie. Max escapes and joins Leslie to rescue the others. Fate is forced to masquerade as the Prince during the coronation so that the rebels can gain control of the kingdom. Leslie and Max overcome Von Stuppe's henchmen and confront Von Stuppe. Following a climactic sword fight with Leslie, Von Stuppe attempts escape by leaping to a waiting boat, but bursts the hull and sinks it. Leslie and Max return the real Prince to the capital in time to defeat Kuhster's plan for a military coup. Fate, still masquerading as Prince Hapnick, takes refuge in a bakery but falls into a huge cake. A pie fight ensues involving the racers, the Prince's men and the conspirators. The five racers, covered in pie filling, depart Carpania with King Friedrich's best wishes. As the racers leave Pottsdorf (with Maggie now back in Leslie's car), it becomes a straight road race to Paris. Nearing Paris, Leslie and Maggie have a spirited argument regarding the roles of men, women and sex in relationships. Leslie stops his car just short of the finish line under the Eiffel Tower to prove that he loves Maggie more than he cares about winning the race. Fate drives past to claim the winner's mantle, but becomes indignant that Leslie let him win. Fate demands a rematch: a race back to New York. The return race commences, with newlyweds Leslie and Maggie now a team. Fate lets them start first, then orders Max to destroy their car with a small cannon. The shot misses the Leslie Special, instead knocking down the Eiffel Tower.

Director Blake Edwards based the film on the 1908 New York to Paris Race, very loosely interpreted. On February 12, 1908, the "Greatest Auto Race" began with six entrants, starting in New York City and racing westward across three continents. The destination was Paris, making it the first around the world automobile race. Only the approximate race route and the general time period were borrowed by Edwards in his effort to make "the funniest comedy ever". Edwards, a studious admirer of silent film, dedicated the film to film comedians Laurel and Hardy. Edwards poked fun at later films and literature as well. The saloon brawl scene was a parody of the western film genre, and a plot detour launched during the final third of the film was a direct parody of the novel The Prisoner of Zenda and of the 1937 film version of the story, where a traveler is a lookalike for the king and stands in for him. Edwards wanted Robert Wagner to play the leading man, but studio executive Jack L. Warner insisted on Tony Curtis, possibly because of Wood's recent divorce from Wagner. (Burt Lancaster was announced at one stage.) Working with Warner, Curtis's new agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar negotiated US$125,000 for Curtis—more than Edwards and Lemmon, who were to receive US$100,000 each. After Warner signed the Curtis contract, Lazar reasoned that Edwards and Lemmon should make US$125,000, and Warner upped its compensation to match Curtis. Julie Andrews was first approached for the role of Maggie DuBois. Andrews having admired the work of Edwards wanted to work on the film, but was forced to bow out due to delays on The Sound of Music. Andrews would eventually marry Edwards and act in several of his films afterward. Natalie Wood did not want to make The Great Race, but Warner talked her into it. Wood was unhappy with her career and her personal life, having been divorced from Robert Wagner in April 1962. Warner asked Curtis if he would give a percentage of his film royalties to Wood as an enticement, but Curtis refused. He said "I couldn't give her anything to make her want to do the movie." Instead of more money, Warner promised Wood that if she completed The Great Race, she could star in Gavin Lambert's drama Inside Daisy Clover, a role she greatly wished to have. On Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, Wood wrapped the last bit of dialog work, then went home and swallowed a bottle of prescription pills. Groggy from the drugs, she called her friend Mart Crowley who took her to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The hero's white car, the Leslie Special, was built by Warner Brothers to resemble a Thomas Flyer, the car that won the 1908 New York to Paris Race. According to the Petersen Automotive Museum, four "Leslie Specials" were built. One of the four is at the Tupelo Automobile Museum in Tupelo, Mississippi, listed as a 1963 Leslie Special Convertible. Another of the four appears painted dark green in the 1970 Warner Brothers film The Ballad of Cable Hogue—the grille can be seen bearing the words Leslie Special, with the wheels and tires remaining their original white color. This vehicle shows up during the last 30 minutes of the movie carrying a lead character, and has a pivotal role at the end of the movie. The villain's black car was named the Hannibal Twin 8; five were constructed. One is on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum, powered by a Volkswagen industrial engine. Another is at the Volo Auto Museum in Volo, Illinois. This model includes a prop "cannon" and a working smoke generator. The Volo museum describes the Hannibal Twin 8 as built by Warner Brothers at a cost of US$150,000 ($ in dollars ), powered by a Corvair six cylinder engine with three speed manual transmission and six wheels. All four rear wheels are powered by a chain drive. Both vehicles were first on display at Movie World's Cars of the Stars Motor Museum in Buena Park, California until the museum closed in the late 1970s. It was located adjacent to the Planes of Fame Museum.

The Technicolor scene for the pie fight in the royal bakery was filmed over five days. In his script for The Great Race, Edwards called for a "Battle of the Century–style pie fight". Although Edwards used 4,000 pies over five days, many of these were used as set dressing for continuity. Laurel and Hardy used 3,000 pies in only one day of shooting, so more are seen flying through the air. Leonard Maltin compared The Great Race pie fight to The Battle of the Century and determined that Laurel and Hardy's pacing was far superior, that the more modern film suffered from an "incomplete understanding of slapstick" while the 1927 pie fight remains "one of the great scenes in all of screen comedy."

The Great Race was generally not well received upon release and critical assessment was mostly negative, making it the first notable failure for director Edwards. Most critics attacked its blatant and overdone slapstick humor and its lack of substance. It also suffered from comparisons with another race themed "epic comedy" of 1965, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Film critic Richard Schickel wrote that, although the film "bumps along very pleasantly for the most part", Edwards failed at his attempt to recreate the slapstick atmosphere of a Laurel and Hardy comedy. Schickel felt that Wood was "hopelessly miscast", and that the energies of Lemmon and Curtis did not quite make the slapstick work. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 72% based on 25 reviews, with an average score of 6.00/10. Despite earning theatrical rentals of over $11.4 million in the United States and Canada, due to its high cost, it caused a loss to the studio.

Award Category Nominee(s) Result Ref. Academy Awards Best Cinematography – Color Russell Harlan Best Film Editing Ralph E. Winters Best Song "The Sweetheart Tree" Music by Henry Mancini; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer Best Sound George Groves Best Sound Effects Treg Brown Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy Jack Lemmon Best Original Score – Motion Picture Henry Mancini Best Original Song – Motion Picture "The Sweetheart Tree" Music by Henry Mancini; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer Golden Reel Awards Best Sound Editing – Feature Film Laurel Awards Top Comedy Top Male Comedy Performance Jack Lemmon Top Song "The Sweetheart Tree" Music by Henry Mancini; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer 5th Place Moscow International Film Festival Grand Prix Blake Edwards Silver Prize Saturn Awards Best DVD Classic Film Release Writers Guild of America Awards Best Written American Comedy Arthur A. Ross

The film was a major influence on Wacky Races, a Hanna Barbera cartoon series. The film's characterizations were rather cartoonish. Furthermore, film editor and sound effects man Treg Brown, who worked on many classic Warner Brothers cartoons, worked on this film. Brown's sound design won the film an Oscar. In his Top 10 Favorite Comedies, Doug Walker cited Jack Lemmon's performance as Professor Fate as a major influence for his Nostalgia Critic persona.