The Great Race is a 1965 American Technicolor epic slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Arthur A. Ross, and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, Arthur O'Connell and Vivian Vance. The movie cost US$12 million, making it the most expensive comedy film at the time. The story was inspired by the actual 1908 New York to Paris Race.
Theatrical release poster
Leslie Special from The Great Race at Stahls Automotive Collection
Hannibal Twin-8 from The Great Race at Stahls Automotive Collection
John Uhler Lemmon III was an American actor. Considered proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in dramedy pictures, leading The Guardian to label him as "the most successful tragi-comedian of his age."
Lemmon in 1968
Tony Curtis and Lemmon in Some Like It Hot (1959)
Lemmon and MacLaine in The Apartment (1960)
Charlie Chaplin (right) receiving an Honorary Academy Award from Lemmon at the 44th Academy Awards in 1972