Around the World in Eighty Days may have its faults and lost some of its original allure, but it remains a sure-bet even today.
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In the fifties, everything about the movies was big: Big screens, big sound, big casts. It was the era of Cinerama, CinemaScope, "The Robe," "The Ten Commandments," "Ben-Hur," and from 1956 "Around the World in Eighty Days." To paraphrase Whoopi Goldberg, if the movies weren't big, they'd be TV.
There was, of course, a concerted effort in the fifties to get people out of their houses, away from their newfangled television sets, and back into theaters. So everything from widescreen and stereo to 3-D and Smell-O-Vision was used to lure folks to the pictures. "Around the World in Eighty Days," needless to say, was among the biggest of them all, icing its message by winning five Academy Awards, including Best Picture of the year. Warner Bros. sees to it that so stylish a movie is done up on DVD in appropriate style in another of their celebrated Two-Disc Special Edition sets.
The story is based on one of Jules Verne's few realistic (that is, non science-fiction) stories, the 1873 novel about circumnavigating the globe in only eighty days, an almost superhuman but not impossible feat back then. A man casually remarks over a card game at a stuffy London men's club that a person could, indeed, go around the world in eighty days, and his whist partners bet him that it can't be done. The fellow takes the bet and sets off on the quest.
The movie is little more than a glorified travelogue, with a whole lot of beautiful and exotic settings (filmed largely on location around the world), a few totally random adventures, and the biggest cast of cameos ever assembled for a motion picture thrown together in a gargantuan three-hour block. Yet it's more than enough to hold one's attention for its 182-minute duration. Either you're marveling at the spectacular scenery, admiring the brilliant cinematography, enjoying the stereo sound and Technicolor, or seeing how many famous actors you can spot in minor roles. Today, this cameo-spotting game is a little more challenging even for movie buffs, since most of the actors in the film have either died or been forgotten.
David Niven stars as Phileas Fogg, a cold, friendless, unmarried, upper-class English gentleman of indeterminate means, who takes the bet of going around the world in what in 1873 was considered an inordinately short period of time. But Fogg is nothing if not punctual, always living by the clock, and insists it can be done, laying out his entire fortune of £20,000 on the wager. In the course of events, Fogg becomes a celebrity as newspapers worldwide follow his escapades; and reading about him, Scotland Yard becomes suspicious that he may be the man responsible for robbing the Bank of England! This supposition would not be lost on the film's audiences then or now, because Niven had already played a gentleman thief in the movie "Raffles" (1940) and would again play such a character in "The Pink Panther" (1963) as Sir Charles Lytton, the notorious Phantom (or as Inspector Clouseau says, "Sir Charles Phantom, the notorious Lytton"). Fogg may be an insufferable snob of exacting expectations, but he is nevertheless endearing, and Niven would later say it was the favorite role of his career. Watching Fogg slowly transform into a human being is delicious.
An even more varied and equally endearing character is that of Fogg's new valet, Passepartout, played by Mexico's most famous comic actor, Cantinflas, whom Charlie Chaplin once described as the "world's greatest comedian." Cantinflas was said to have been able to do almost anything (rider, juggler, wrestler, bullfighter, gymnast, clown), and he is put to good physical use in the film, becoming its most quietly heroic figure.
The only other two actors of note in the film are Shirley MacLaine in one of her first screen roles as the Indian Princess Aouda, who comes to melt Fogg's icy exterior; and Robert Newton, better known to American audiences as Long John Silver in "Treasure Island," as Police Inspector Fix. While MacLaine was at the beginning of a lengthy and successful film career, Newton would die of a heart attack shortly after the movie was completed. Strange are the ways of Fate.
Almost as notable as its principal players, however, is the movie's use of cameos. This is, in fact, the movie that started the trend, the term "cameo role" having been coined specifically for the film by its producer, Michael Todd. I won't bore you by listing everyone who appears in the story, but I'll mention a few who show up for at least a moment or two: Sir John Gielgud, Noel Coward, Robert Morley, Trevor Howard, Charles Boyer, Jose Greco, Cesar Romero, Gilbert Roland, Reginald Denny, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Charles Coburn, Peter Lorre, Hermione Gingold, George Raft, Marlene Dietrich, Red Skelton, Frank Sinatra, John Carradine, Buster Keaton, Joe E. Brown, Tim McCoy, Jack Oakie, Victor McLaglen, Andy Devine, Edmund Lowe, John Mills, and Beatrice Lillie among many others. Distinguished newsman Edward R. Murrow narrates the prologue.
The movie was directed by Michael Anderson, who had not done many films of distinction before "Around the World" except perhaps "The Dam Busters" (1954), which was more notable for Eric Coates' music ("Dambusters March") than anything else, and "1984," and who would do little of distinction afterwards, except perhaps "The Shoes of the Fisherman," "The Quiller Memorandum," and "Logan's Run." Anderson's job was to keep things moving at a reasonable pace, at which he succeeds.
The film's producer actually upstaged the director in the filmmaking department. Mike Todd had never produced a movie before "Around the World," having only worked as an executive producer on one other theatrical release, "This Is Cinerama," in 1952. And he died in a plane crash in 1958, leaving "Around the World" as his only legacy. But showman and entrepreneur that he was, he ensured that his one-and-only film would have a lasting impact. Not only did it win all those Oscars and make him a multimillionaire, the film would predate and influence such notable comic epics as "The Great Race," "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines," and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."
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