Tracy pointing across the room in the foreground as his secretary types on a standard Royal KMG.

The Royal KMG Standard Typewriters of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

The Stanley Kramer comedy classic film It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (United Artists, 1963) has a handful of Royal KMG typewriters featured in the office settings at police stations throughout the film. The KMG was Royal’s top-of-the-line office standard machine and was manufactured from 1949 to 1952 before being replaced by the Royal HH (1952 to 1957) and the Royal FP (1957to 1962). By the time the film premiered in November of 1963, the newest desktop manual would have been the Royal Empress (1962-1966).

The featured Royal KMG of the film sits in the center of Capt. T. G. Culpeper’s (portrayed by Spencer Tracy) squad room and another appears in the background there.

A switchboard operator with a headset in a police department office. In the background is a secretary at a gray Royal KMG typewriter on a small typewriter desk. On the wall behind them is a map charting the chase route of the people chasing the missing money. In the back corner in front of the map is another Royal KMG.

The switchboard operator at her board in the foreground as Culpepper's secretary types on a Royal KMG just behind her at a small typing table next to her tanker desk.

A sargent in a white uniform leans over a tanker desk to talk to the secretary outside of Captain Cullpepper's office. The secretary is facing away from him working at her Royal KMG typewriter

Spencer Tracy in a 3/4 shot wearing a black suit and tie and a fedora while he's on the phone. Just in front of him is a secretary's Royal KMG typewriter. Another typewriter sits on a desk in the far background.

Spencer Tracy on the telephone next to his secretary at her Royal KMG typewriter. Between them in the background is a map tracing the route of the bank robber.

Spencer Tracy walking out of the Detective's Division. In the background are another officer and a Royal KMG typewriter.

Tracy pointing across the room in the foreground as his secretary types on a standard Royal KMG.

A police station bullpen with five officers gathered around a desk as one radios out orders. On the right hand side just behind them on a desk we see the left side of a Royal KMG typewriter

Another Royal KMG appears in the sheriff’s office of Crockett Country with the Sheriff portrayed by well known character actor Andy Devine.

Andy Devine as the old sheriff with bushy gray eyebrows and a reddish face is on a black rotary desk phone in his office as a closely cropped deputy sits behind him at a desk where we see the left side of a gray Royal KMG typewriter in the background.

 

Of tangential note, comedian and writer Carl Reiner, who portrays the tower controller at Rancho Conejo at which Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett attempt to land their airplane, is known to have have used a Royal KMG, though one doesn’t appear in any of his scenes in the air traffic control tower.

Published by

Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

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