Movie
The Great Race
Romance film with a runtime of 160 minutes, released in 1965. Presented in English.
At a Glance
Synopsis
Tony Curtis stars as The Great Leslie, a hero among heroes whose purity of heart is manifested by his spotlessly white wardrobe. Leslie's great rival, played by Jack Lemmon, is Professor Fate, a scowling, mustachioed, top-hatted, black-garbed villain. Long envious of Leslie's record-setting accomplishments with airships and sea craft, Professor Fate schemes to win a 22,000-mile auto race from New York City to Paris by whatever insidious means possible. The problem is that Fate is his own worst enemy: each of his plans to remove Leslie from the running (and from the face of the earth) backfires. Leslie's own cross to bear is suffragette Maggie Dubois (Natalie Wood), who also hopes to win the contest and thus strike a blow for feminism. The race takes all three contestants to the Wild West, the frozen wastes of Alaska, and, in the longest sequence, the mythical European kingdom of Carpania. This last-named country is the setting for a wild Prisoner of Zenda spoof involving Professor Fate and his look-alike, the foppish Carpanian king. When Leslie and Fate approach the finish line at the Eiffel Tower, Leslie deliberately loses to prove his love for Maggie. Professor Fate cannot stand winning under these circumstances, thus he demands that he and Leslie race back to New York. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk as Fate's long-suffering flunkey Max, Keenan Wynn as Leslie's faithful general factotum, Dorothy Provine as a brassy saloon singer, Larry Storch as ill-tempered bandit Texas Jack, and Ross Martin as Baron Von Stuppe. The film also yielded a hit song, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer's The Sweetheart Tree. The Great Race was dedicated to "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy".
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Cast
- Tony Curtis
- Jack Lemmon
- Natalie Wood
- Peter Falk
- Arthur O'Connell
- Keenan Wynn
- Vivian Vance
- Dorothy Provine
- Larry Storch
- Ross Martin
- George Macready
- Marvin Kaplan
- Hal Smith
- Denver Pyle
- William Bryant
- Ken Wales
- J. Edward McKinley
- Art Stewart
- Maria Schroeder
- Patricia King
- Blake Edwards
- Joyce Nizzari
- Greg Benedict
- Chuck Hayward
- Francis McDonald
- Richard Alexander
- Robert S. Carson
- Paul Smith
- Frank Kreig
- Charles Fredericks
- Clegg Hoyt
- Charles Steel
- Joe Palma
- Paul Bryar
- Chester Hayes
- John Truax
- Johnny Silver
- Hal Riddle
- George James Hopkins
- Tregoweth Brown
- Hermes Pan
- Ralph E. Winters
- Russell Harlan
- Don Feld
- Ralph Winters
- Edith Head
- Fernando Carrere
- Arthur Ross
- George R. Groves
