Jonathan Winters

In olden days, as Cole Porter famously observed, a mere glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. So it's heartening to report that this 1965 black comedy still delivers on its billing as "the motion picture with something to offend everyone." Tony Richardson, fresh off the liberating Tom Jones, brings Evelyn Waugh's self-described "little nightmare" to the screen with all its sacrilegious shocks (and then some!) intact, courtesy of screenwriters Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove) and Christopher Isherwood.

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming looks overly cute now, but really, it was pretty hip for 1966. The cold war was in full deep-freeze when this well-meaning comedy tried to thaw things out a little: a Soviet submarine beaches on the New England coast, sending the locals into a paranoid frenzy. The chief pleasure of the film is Alan Arkin as the sub captain; this was Arkin's first major film role, and he had already mastered his exasperated, slow-burning frown (to say nothing of mastering his Russian dialogue).

Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters and Jimmy Durante are just a few of the stars that shine in this laugh-out-loud adventure about a goofy assortment of vacationing motorists who compete to locate a stolen fortune. It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was the first movie to be presented in the single lens Cinerama format and originally ran over three hours. This 16x9 enhanced DVD of the general release 161 minute version is from 35mm interpositive film elements newly transferred from the 65mm Ultra Panavison originals.