The Great Race

The Carpanian segment of the movie is a takeoff on two of the movie versions of the novel The Prisoner of Zenda, the 1937 version and the 1952 version which is almost a shot-by-shot remake of the earlier one, but in color. The song that we hear in the background in the scene in Leslie's tent really sounds like something from the period, but is actually from the 1928 operetta The Desert Song, so at least twenty years after the movie takes place. Yes, that is Vivian Vance, Ethel Mertz from I Love Lucy, as Mrs. Goodbody. Now that you've seen The Great Race, it's probably time to see Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, a wonderful comedy in much the spirit of The Great Race but about an air race, taking place only a very few years after The Great Race, and also made in 1965. The two movies make a perfect pair.