Synopsis:
From IMDB: A group of motorists witnesses a car crash in the California desert, and after the driver's dying words indicate the location of a hidden stash of loot, they turn against each in a race across the state to get to it.
Intentions:
The Criterion release of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World includes an extended cut that attempts to replicate the 4+ hour roadshow version of the film that no longer truly exists. There's more footage present than in previous extended editions (released on VHS, laserdisc, and shown on TMC), but at cost: footage with different aspect ratios, blurry footage, black-and-white still images where footage was unavailable, production photos in place of still images, soundless footage, and embedded subtitles, as well as lots of discoloration due to deteriorated sources or unavailable finished film. This edit is an attempt to remove what I consider the most intolerable inclusions, recoloring, cropping, and blurrying as little as necessary, while retaining as much as possible (and tolerable).
Change List:
Too many changes to count.
Additional Notes:
This is my first fanedit, so I didn't follow what I can tell is pretty common procedure. I cut the worst offenders: empty frames, soundless footage, cropped occasionally to hide bad color or to match aspect ratio, blurred embedded Chinese subtitles, and used automated tools to recolor when I could. I tried not to tweak the footage I kept in because I just don't have the experience to go further. In the future, I'd like to add subtitles, work from a 4k source, and learn my way around some color correction software. Also: if anyone likes this and wants to do a better job of it, power to you! I only did it myself because it didn't already exist. If you want to see it, I'm easy to find on Twitter, BlueSky, and the Discord.