Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Michael Anderson

Writers:

James Poe (screenplay) &
John Farrow (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

1958 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Family | Fantasy | Romance | Western

Tagline:

See everything in the World worth seeing! Do everything in the World worth doing!

Plot:

Adaptation of Jules Verne's novel about a Victorian Englishman who bets that with the new steamships and railways he can do what the title says.

Plot Keywords:

Bet | England | Travel | Spain | Princess

Awards:

Won 5 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Cantinflas	...	Passepartout
Finlay Currie	...	Andrew Stuart
Robert Morley	...	Gauthier Ralph
Ronald Squire	...	Reform Club Member
Basil Sydney	...	Reform Club Member
Noel Coward	...	Hesketh-Baggott
John Gielgud	...	Fosdyke (as Sir John Gielgud)
Trevor Howard	...	Denis Fallentin
Harcourt Williams	...	Hinshaw
David Niven	...	Phileas Fogg
Martine Carol	...	Tourist
Fernandel	...	French Coachman
Charles Boyer	...	Monsieur Gasse
Evelyn Keyes	...	The Flirt
Jose Greco and Troupe	...	Flamenco Dancers

Also Known As:

Around the World in 80 Days (USA) (alternative spelling)
Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

167 min (35 mm version) | 183 min (with overture and exit music) | UK:135 min (25 fps) (video version) | USA:175 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish | French

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (Mag-optical) (35 mm prints) (1956) | Mono (optical) (35 mm prints) (re-release prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) (Westrex Recording System) | 4-Track Stereo (Perspecta Sound encoding) (35 mm magnetic prints) (1956)

Certification:

Canada:14A (Ontario) | Norway:A | West Germany:6 (f) | New Zealand:G | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Finland:S | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:Btl | UK:U | USA:Approved | USA:G (1983)

Filming Locations:

5 Lower Grosvenor Place, Westminster, London, England, UK

Company:

Michael Todd Company

Trivia:

There is no gas balloon in the original novel. Nevertheless this mode of transportation has endured as an iconic image of the film.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In San Francisco the 'ladies of the evening' jump off a wagon full of beer barrels marked 'Pabst Blue Ribbon.' Pabst was called 'Select' until 1882 when, due to their practice of tying a blue ribbon around the neck, it was frequently asked for as 'that blue ribbon beer.'

Quotes:

Col. Proctor Stamp: What kind of foreigner are you? Are you a hoochie-coochie dancer?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Soundtrack:

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

This Picture Makes No Sense On A Small Screen

Around the World in 80 Days is part comedy and part demonstration of a new wide-screen process. I saw it in its original run at the old Rivoli Theater in New York, where the screen ran from 48th St. to 49th St. People gasped at the size of the screen when the curtains opened, before the film even got underway.

If you watch the new 16x9 DVD on anything less than a 50-inch television, the visual composition and the pacing are absolutely incomprehensible, and you're on your own to seize on the many little things that are there to entertain you. But as a whole, the film loses its reason for being when viewed on a conventional TV.

David Niven is unbeatable as Phileas Fogg, Shirley Maclaine is implausible but slyly humorous as the Princess, Robert Newton appears sober most of the time and hammy all of it as Inspector Fix.

Cantinflas is inexplicable as Passepartout, except perhaps as Mike Todd's attempt to corral the entire Latin American market. The Mexican comedian's English is very shaky; it slows him down, and his clarity comes and goes and makes me wonder if Paul Frees didn't replace a lot of his lines. At any rate, only in the seemingly improvised encounter with Red Skelton at a buffet does Cantinflas do anything remotely humorous, and there he's the straight man.

The cameos are fun, and if you're too young to know who all these geezers are, it's worth it to find out, and use the IMDb to track down the work that made them famous. I remember the shriek the original audience let out when the piano player was revealed to be Frank Sinatra.

Viewing the film now, I was most moved to see Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglan reunited in the engine room of the Henrietta, thirty years after they riveted the industry in "What Price Glory?" Buster Keaton concentrates really hard in his appearance as the train conductor, to excellent effect. A. E. Matthews gives a terrific acting lesson in saying "no" a half a dozen times in a London sequence.

Among the original bettors, locate Ronald Squire with the drooping mustache, hollow nasal baritone, and a slouching relaxation while performing that was a marvel - Rex Harrison publicly admired Ronald Squire's ease on stage all his life. In fact, Squire is so relaxed he makes someone like Dean Martin seem uptight.

So, this film is an unusual case - requiring patience for lots of little joys on the small screen, but making sense only on a large one.