It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

Originally filmed in Ultra Panavision for showing in Cinerama (subsequent prints were cut to 154 minutes), Kramer's 'comedy to end all comedy' stretches its material to snapping point but offers happy hours of star-spotting (everyone has a cameo, from Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante and Jim Backus to Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis and the Three Stooges). There are several great sequences, most of which involve Terry-Thomas, whose image of America as a bosom- and money-fixated society is spot on. It's an epic allegory about greed, centering on a frantic treasure hunt for buried bank loot.