What do you get when combining the creative comic genius of Blake Edwards, the musical brilliance of Henry Mancini, and five of Hollywood’s funniest and most popular stars taking audiences on an audacious race from New York to Paris in order to demonstrate both the superior automobile and the superior man? Edwards’ over-budget film used slapstick to spoof a bygone era when women fought as suffragettes to demand equal treatment. In The Great Race (September 1965) Natalie Wood played Maggie DuBois, an emancipated woman, challenging the Great Leslie (Tony Curtis), a penultimate symbol of manhood and selfless masculinity. Jack Lemmon portrayed Professor Fate, whose life ambition is focused on beating the Great Leslie.
The American Racing Mentality
The movie opened in September of 1965 during a year racing was becoming a popular sensation. In March, fifty-four yachts participated in the Miami to Nassau race; on July 10, the Block Island race in Rhode Island, compared by the New York Times to Britain’s Cowes Week, got under way. The April auto show featured 450 cars from eight countries and in May the Indianapolis Speedway captured growing national attention. It was a good year to release The Great Race.
The Great Race follows the competing dare-devil exploits of the Great Leslie and Professor Fate. The ultimate competition is an automobile race from New York to Paris, an event Miss DuBois is determined to cover first hand in her quest to be taken seriously as a female reporter. Throughout the film, she vainly attempts to seduce Leslie and makes a pact with the professor and his zany sidekick Max (Peter Falk). In the end, love triumphs. On April 25, 1965, while Edwards was still filming, Peter Bart commented that The Great Race “is a throwback to the broad, slapstick comedy style of the prewar years.” (New York Times)
The race follows the stars to Boracho, a fueling stop and Hollywood’s stereotypical western town. Dorothy Provine plays Lily Olay, Boracho’s saloon diva who emerges on stage sitting on a half-moon. Her welcoming embrace in the arms of Leslie triggers the barroom fight when Texas Jack (Larry Storch) swaggers through the swinging doors, demanding “room to fight.” During the height of the brawl, Fate and Max grab the precious gasoline and blow up what they can’t take.
Miss DuBois cons Leslie, betraying his faithful assistant Hezekiah (Kennan Wynn) in the process. Feigning innocence, she and Leslie continue alone, eventually sharing a rapidly melting ice-block with Fate and Max. At Vladivostok, Hezekiah reappears, exposing Maggie DuBois’ duplicity. The next major stop is in Pottsdorf, a tiny European duchy ruled by a prince who is the spitting image of Professor Fate (both roles are played by Jack Lemmon).
Borrowing themes from the Prisoner of Zenda, the Great Leslie rescues the hapless crown prince and all of the principals end up in one of Hollywood’s funniest pie fights ever filmed. Commenting on Jack Lemmon’s portrayal of the “idiotic and maniacally laughing crown prince,” reviewer Bosley Crowther observed that, “he is the one frenzied custard-covered figure that does the eccentric things you can’t miss.” (New York Times, September 17, 1965)
Natalie Wood Portrays an Emancipated Woman
Natalie Wood encapsulates the image of the liberated woman. Vivian Vance, of I Love Lucy fame, also portrays the stereotypical suffragette who leads a march of women down the main street and ends up editor of the newspaper covering the race after her husband is sent to recuperate at an institution. Wood’s character, however, is trapped between her desire to be viewed as an independent woman and her deepening love for Leslie.
The Great Race premiered over two years after Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was published, addressing some of Friedan’s observations, albeit as a comedic story: Maggie DuBois sets out to find happiness and acceptance in a man’s world, pitting herself against the most potent symbol of virtue and masculinity, the Great Leslie. But in the process, she falls in love and ends up marrying him.
The story is set during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Perhaps coincidentally, writer Allen Andrews published The Mad Motorists: The Great Peking-Paris Race of ’07 in early 1965. The book was based on an actual automobile race taking contestants through the Gobi Desert and Siberia in the 10,000 mile race.
The Great Race was one of the most expensive comedies filmed at the time but had wide audience appeal, headlining at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Henry Mancini’s song, “The Sweetheart Tree,” (lyrics by Johnny Mercer) was nominated by the Academy Awards for best song. The film is still a tribute to the memory of Natalie Wood as well as one of Hollywood’s most beloved actors, Jack Lemmon. Lemmon’s line to Peter Falk – “Push the button, Max!” will be forever recorded on the list of top movie quotes.
The Great Race. 1965. Dir. Blake Edwards. Perf. Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Kennan Wynn. Warner Brothers. Running Time: 150 min.
Join the Conversation