The Great Race

Name: The Great Race
Genre: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Romance, Western
Released: 1965-07-01
Duration: 2 h 40 min
Rating: 7.6
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn

The movie with 20,000-miles or one-million-laughs guarantee!

The Great Race (1965)

Timing: 2:40 (160 min)

7.6/10
47 738

—
no scores

7.1/10
378

7.2/10
21000

Rate the movie:

Everything about the movie

Video 3

Photo 30

Actors and characters

Video for the film The Great Race — The Great Race Trailer 1965

2:52

Photo 30

Release date

1965-07-01

Country

United States

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures, Jalem Productions, Patricia Productions, Reynard Productions

Genre

Comedy, Adventure, Action, Romance, Western, Family

Budget

$12 000 000

Box office

$25 333 333

Website

Director

Blake Edwards

Actors

Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, Arthur O'Connell, Vivian Vance, Dorothy Provine, Larry Storch, Ross Martin
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Martin Jurow

Camera operator

Russell Harlan

Composer

Henry Mancini

Artist

Fernando Carrere

Audition

Editing

Ralph E. Winters
Whole Team (78)

Short description

Professional daredevil and white-suited hero, The Great Leslie, convinces turn-of-the-century auto makers that a race from New York to Paris (westward across America, the Bering Straight and Russia) will help to promote automobile sales. Leslie's arch-rival, the mustached and black-attired Professor Fate vows to beat Leslie to the finish line in a car of Fate's own invention.

What's left behind the scenes

The film is preceded by a six-minute overture. A three-minute musical interlude is placed between episodes. Both the overture and the interlude were cut in Soviet distribution. Also, two scenes were cut from the film in Soviet distribution: a long journey on an ice floe from Alaska to Kamchatka – to reduce screen time, and a visit to Tobolsk by the travelers – for ideological reasons.
During the journey from Alaska to Kamchatka, the ice floe enters fog, and Max signals with the car horn. Unexpectedly, he plays the musical theme from the film "West Side Story" (1961) on the horn.
Despite its comedic plot, the film was inspired by a real event – the 1908 New York to Paris Great Race.
It ranks 55th in attendance among foreign films in Soviet cinema distribution.
The full name of Tony Curtis’s character (The Great Leslie) was Leslie Gallant III.
Preparing for filming, Natalie Wood took fencing and horseback riding lessons and learned to smoke cigars, but the most difficult thing for the actress was learning to drive a steam car.
Work on the film quickly exceeded the budget allocated to the project, and as a result, the film became the most expensive comedy production of its time, as well as one of the longest, with a running time of 160 minutes.
During the pie-throwing scene, Tony Curtis, as the Great Leslie, remained impeccably dressed, while all other characters involved in the scene were covered in pie. Curtis had to change into clean clothes several times, as pieces of pie occasionally hit him.
For the participants themselves, the 1908 New York to Paris auto race was by no means a leisurely drive. Paved roads were scarce during that historical period, and in some parts of the world, they didn't exist at all. The most challenging parts of the competition were in Siberia and Alaska, and not all participants reached the finish line.
During the journey from Alaska to Kamchatka, the ice floe enters a fog, and Max signals using the car horn. Unexpectedly, he manages to play the musical theme from the movie 'West Side Story' (1961) with the horn.
The full name of Tony Curtis's character (The Great Leslie) was Leslie Gallant III.
The cake-throwing scene takes up four minutes of screen time, but it took five days to film. It is the longest cake fight in cinematic history. Initially, the actors enjoyed filming the scene, but over time, the process became tedious and genuinely dangerous. A thrown piece of cake landed right in Natalie Wood's (who played Maggie Dubois) open mouth, and she nearly choked. Jack Lemmon, who played the main antagonist, was hit in the face with pieces of cake several times. As soon as the scene finished, director and screenwriter Blake Edwards shouted, "Cut!"—and in that same instant, pieces of cake flew at him from all directions, which the cast and crew had hidden and saved specifically for that moment.
While preparing for the shoot, Natalie Wood took fencing and horseback riding lessons and learned how to smoke cigars, but the actress found operating a steam-powered car to be the most difficult task.
In the cake-throwing scene, the Great Leslie, played by Tony Curtis, remained dressed to the nines, while all the other characters in the scene were smeared with cake. Curtis had to change into clean clothes several times because thrown pieces of cake occasionally hit him as well.