the great race
View company contact information for The Great Race on IMDbPro. [1]
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. [2]
The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. [3]
The film also yielded a hit song, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer ’s The Sweetheart Tree. [2]
The first car crossed the finish line on July 18, but its team was penalised 15 days for using railroad transport to meet a critical North American deadline (meeting the other surviving racers to catch a ship to Russia). [3]
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. [2]
The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis), whose full name is Leslie Gallant III, is a wealthy daredevil and showman who is famed for such things as setting speed records and performing escape feats worthy of Harry Houdini. [3]
Comedy about an early 20th century car race across three continents. [...] A moose head appears to hang on the wall of Professor Fate’s (Jack Lemmon ’s) oddly-decorated dining room. [1]
Deliciously devilish Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) is Leslie’s nemesis, whose own daredevil shows usually end in failure or at least embarrassment. [3]
Building on the dedication to “Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy “, the film makes use of every silent movie era slapstick and visual gag, along with double entendres, parodies and period-related absurdism (amongst these are the elaborate gowns of Maggie DuBois and the fact that, with limited luggage, she never repeats an outfit). [...] Leslie’s great rival, played by Jack Lemmon, is Professor Fate, a scowling, mustachioed, top-hatted, black-garbed villain. [...] 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. [2]
It starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, Arthur O’Connell and Vivian Vance. [...] Production design, so important in setting the period but also in establishing a setting for the visual humour, was by Fernando Carrere who also designed The Great Escape and The Pink Panther for Blake Edwards. [3]
Sources:
[1] The Great Race (1965)
[2] The Great Race 1965: Movie and film review from Answers.com
[3] The Great Race - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia