ABOUT THIS PIE FIGHT
The clip is from the 1965 movie comedy, The Great Race, produced by Blake Edwards, starring Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Peter Falk.
It was very loosely based on an actual 1908 contest in which automobiles were to race from New York to Paris. It was a 169-day grueling journey featuring four teams and six cars. Only three of the six cars completed the race, which was won by an American team.
The movie's pie fight scene is iconic. According to one source:
"In the first few hours of filming the pie fight scene, Natalie Wood was lead gasping from the set when she choked on a creamy hit in the mouth. Jack Lemmon said: "I actually got knocked out a couple of times. Unless it's thrown just right, a pie hitting you in the face feels like 10 tons of cement."
Shots of the cast and extras throwing pies took 5 days to film. After the first day, the on-set photographer took head shot photos of the cast covered in pie so that when they arrived for filming the next day, the make-up artists knew which type of pies were to be re-applied to the casts' faces so as to resume shooting from the night before.
The pies used were real. They contained fruit, custard and whipped cream. Following this scene, the crew devoured 300 leftover pies from a total of 2,357.
Jack Lemmon had to film the pie fight scene twice as he brings both Professor Fate and Prince Hapnick into one scene!
During the pie-throwing scene, there is a running gag that The Great Leslie remains clean while everyone else is covered in pie. Tony Curtis was required to change clothes several times when he was accidentally splattered with debris from a pie that had hit someone else."
