The Great Race (DVD)

Crank your engines! With a roar, sputter and pop (and more Academy Award winning Best Sound Effects), drivers wheel westward in wacky turn-of-the-century autos for a New York-to-Paris race. Ahead lie 20,000 miles, a bar-room brawl, a sinking iceberg, 2357 pies in the face and incalculable laughs. Blake Edwards turns a marvellous cast loose on a round-the-world highway booby-trapped by some of the funniest screen gags ever. Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk are nasty Professor Fate and his dim henchman Max. Tony Curtis is their good-guy nemesis, the Great Leslie. And Natalie Wood is cheroot-puffing suffragette reporter Maggie DuBois. Zestily scored by Henry Mancini and ravishing a new digital transfer with revitalized digital audio from restored elements, The Great Race is great fun.