Around the World in 80 Days (1956 film)

Around the World in 80 Days (sometimes spelled as Around the World in Eighty Days) is a 1956 American epic adventure-comedy film starring David Niven and Cantinflas​, produced by the Michael Todd Company and released by United Artists.

The epic picture was directed by Michael Anderson and produced by Mike Todd, with Kevin McClory and William Cameron Menzies as associate producers. The screenplay, based on the classic 1873 novel of the same name by Jules Verne, was written by James Poe, John Farrow, and S.J. Perelman. The music score was composed by Victor Young, and the Todd-AO 70 mm cinematography (shot in Technicolor) was by Lionel Lindon. The film's six-minute-long animated title sequence, shown at the end of the film, was created by award-winning designer Saul Bass.

The film won 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Plot

Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow presents an onscreen prologue, featuring footage from A Trip to the Moon (1902) by Georges Méliès, explaining that it is based loosely on the book From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne. Also included is the launching of an unmanned rocket and footage of the earth receding.

In 1872, an English gentleman Phileas Fogg (David Niven) claims he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. He makes a £20,000 wager (worth about £1.8 million in 2015) with four sceptical fellow members of the Reform Club (each contributing £5,000 to the bet) that he can arrive back eighty days from exactly 8:45 pm that evening.

Together with his resourceful valet, Passepartout (Cantinflas), Fogg goes hopscotching around the globe generously spending money to encourage others to help him get to his destinations faster so he can accommodate tight steamship schedules. They set out on the journey from Paris by a gas balloon named La Coquette upon learning the mountain train tunnel is blocked. The two accidentally end up in Spain, where Passepartout engages in a comic bullfight. Next, he goes to Brindisi. Meanwhile, suspicion grows that Fogg has stolen £55,000 (around £4.9 million today[6]) from the Bank of England so Police Inspector Fix (Robert Newton) is sent out by Scotland Yard to trail him (starting in Suez) and keeps waiting for a warrant to arrive so he can arrest Fogg in the British ports they visit. In India, Fogg and Passepartout rescue young widow Princess Aouda (Shirley MacLaine) from being forced into a funeral pyre with her late husband. The three visit Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, and the Wild West (including the Sioux Nation). After sailing across the Atlantic, and only hours short of winning his wager, Fogg is arrested upon arrival at Liverpool, by the diligent yet misguided Inspector Fix.

At the jail, the humiliated Fix informs Fogg that the real culprit was caught in Brighton. Although he is now exculpated, he has insufficient time to reach London before his deadline and thus has lost everything – but the love of the winsome Aouda. Salvation is at hand when, upon returning to London, Passepartout buys a newspaper and sees it is still Saturday. Fogg then realizes that by traveling east towards the rising sun and by crossing the International Date Line, he has gained a day. There is still time to reach the Reform Club and win the bet. Fogg arrives at the club just before the 8:45 pm chime. Passepartout and Aouda then arrive, shocking everyone, as no woman has ever entered the Reform Club before.

Cast

The film boasts an all star cast, with David Niven and Cantinflas in the lead roles of Fogg and Passepartout. Fogg is the classic Victorian gentleman, well-dressed, well-spoken, and extremely punctual, whereas his servant Passepartout (who has an eye for the ladies) provides much of the comic relief as a "jack of all trades" for the film in contrast to his master's strict formality. Joining them are Shirley MacLaine as Princess Aouda and Robert Newton as the Detective Fix, in his last role.

The role of Passepartout was greatly expanded from the novel to accommodate Cantinflas, the most famous Latin-American comedian at the time, and winds up as the focus of the film. While Passepartout describes himself as a Parisian in the novel, this is unclear in the film – he has a French name, but speaks Spanish when he and his master arrive in Spain by balloon. In the Spanish version, the name of his character was changed from the French Passepartout to the Spanish Juan Picaporte. There is also a comic bullfighting sequence especially created for Cantinflas that is not in the novel. Indeed, when the film was released in some non-English speaking nations, Cantinflas was billed as the lead. According to the guidebook, this was done because of an obstacle Todd faced in casting Cantinflas, who never had appeared in an American movie and had turned down countless offers to do so. Todd allowed Cantinflas to appear in the film as a Latin, "so," the actor said himself, "...to my audience in Latin America, I'll still be Cantinflas."

More than 40 famous performers make cameo appearances, including Marlene Dietrich, Ronald Colman, George Raft, and Frank Sinatra. The film was significant as the first of the so-called Hollywood "make work" films, employing dozens of film personalities. John Wayne turned down Todd's offer for the role of the Colonel leading the Cavalry charge, a role filled by Colonel Tim McCoy. James Cagney, Gary Cooper, and Kirk Douglas—along with Wayne—were considered for the role, but according to Michael Todd, "they all wanted to kid it." Promotional material released at the time quoted a Screen Actors Guild representative looking at the shooting call sheet and crying: "Good heavens Todd, you've made extras out of all the stars in Hollywood!" As of 2019, Shirley MacLaine and Glynis Johns are the last surviving members of the cast.

Main cast

- David Niven as Phileas Fogg

- Cantinflas as Passepartout

- Shirley MacLaine as Princess Aouda

- Robert Newton as Inspector Fix

Production

Around the World in 80 Days was produced by Michael Todd, a Broadway showman who had never before produced a film. The director he hired, Michael Anderson, had directed the highly acclaimed British World War II feature The Dam Busters (1955), George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four feature (1956), and other classic films. Todd sold his interest in the Todd-AO format to help finance the film.

Because Todd-AO ran at 30 frames per second, which was incompatible with the 35mm standard of 24 fps, Around the World in 80 Days was filmed twice, like the first feature in Todd-AO, Oklahoma!. Unlike Oklahoma!, however, which was filmed additionally in 35mm CinemaScope, Around the World in 80 Days was filmed simultaneously in Todd-AO at 24 frames per second so that from this negative, 35mm reduction prints could be produced for general release. After these two films, the specification for Todd-AO was altered after the third film in the format, South Pacific, to 24 fps running, making it unnecessary to film subsequent productions twice.

In his 1972 autobiographical book The Moon's a Balloon, actor David Niven discussed his meeting with Todd and the subsequent events that led to the film being produced. According to Niven, when Todd asked him if he would appear as Fogg, Niven enthusiastically replied, 'I'd do it for nothing!' He later admitted to being grateful that Todd did not hold him to his claim. He also described the first meeting between Todd and Robert Newton (who suffered from drinking problems) when the latter was offered the role of the detective, Fix; Niven alleged that Newton was offered the part on condition that he did not drink any alcohol during the filming, and that his celebration following the completion of his role led to his untimely demise (he did not live to see the film released).

Filming took place in late 1955, from August 9 to December 20. The crew worked fast (75 actual days of filming), producing 680,000 feet (210,000 m) of film, which was edited down to 25,734 feet (7,844 m) of finished film. The picture cost just under $6 million to make, employing 112 locations in 13 countries and 140 sets. Todd said he and the crew visited every country portrayed in the picture, including England, France, India, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Spain, Thailand, and Japan. According to Time magazine's review of the film, the cast, including extras, totaled 68,894 people; it also featured 7,959 animals, "including four ostriches, six skunks, 15 elephants, 17 fighting bulls, 512 rhesus monkeys, 800 horses, 950 burros, 2,448 American buffalo, 3,800 Rocky Mountain sheep and a sacred cow that eats flowers on cue". There is also a cat at the Reform Club. The wardrobe department spent $410,000 to provide 74,685 costumes and 36,092 trinkets. This is allegedly the most costumes ever required for a Hollywood production.

Some 10,000 extras were used in filming the bullfight scene in Spain, with Cantinflas as the matador; Cantinflas had previously done some bullfighting. They used all 6,500 residents of a small Spanish town called Chinchón, 45 kilometres (28 mi) from Madrid, but Todd decided there weren't enough spectators. So he found 3,500 more from nearby towns. He used 650 Indians for a fight on a train in the West. Many were indeed Indians, but some were Hollywood extras. All 650 had their skin color altered with dye. Todd used about 50 US gallons (190 l; 42 imp gal) of orange-coloured dye for those extras.

Todd sometimes used models of boats, ships, and trains in the film, but he often decided that they didn't look realistic so he switched to the real thing where he could. The scene of a collapsing train bridge is partly without models. The overhead shot of a train crossing a bridge was full scale, but the bridge collapse was a large-scale miniature, verifiable by observing the slightly jerky motion of the rear passenger car as the train pulls away, as well as the slowed-down water droplets which are out of scale in the splashing river below. All the steamships shown in the first half are miniatures shot in an outdoor studio tank. The exception is the American ship shown at the intermission point, which is real. A tunnel was built for a train sequence out of paper mache. After the train filming was complete, the "tunnel" was pushed over into the gorge. Many of the special effects are described and pictured in a 1956 Popular Mechanics article.

The scenes of the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by steamship took place off San Francisco and were shot on a specially built prop steamer, a converted barge mocked up to resemble a small ocean-going steamship, with mock paddles driven by the electric motor from an old streetcar. In his memoirs, Niven described the whole thing as being dangerously unstable (though stability improved as it was dismantled as though to feed it into its own furnaces as the plot required).

One of the most famous sequences in the film, the flight by hydrogen balloon, is not in the original Jules Verne novel. Because the film was made in Todd AO, the sequence was expressly created to show off the locations seen on the flight, as projected on the giant curved screen used for the process. A similar balloon flight can be found in an earlier Jules Verne novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, in which the protagonists explore Africa from a hydrogen balloon.

Many of the balloon scenes with Niven and Cantinflas were filmed using a 160-foot (49 m) crane. Even that height bothered Niven, who was afraid of heights. Tom Burges, who was shorter than Niven, was used as a stand-in for scenes where the balloon is seen from a distance. Many of the lots used in the film are now on the land occupied by Century City, an office complex in the L.A. area.

In his memoirs, Niven related that Todd completed filming while in considerable debt. The post-production work on the film was an exercise in holding off Todd's creditors long enough to produce a saleable film, and the footage was worked upon under the supervision of Todd's creditors and returned to a secure vault each night, as if it were in escrow.

The film's release and subsequent success vindicated Todd's considerable efforts.

Release

The film premiered on October 17, 1956 at the Rivoli Theater in New York City and played to full houses for 15 months. It ran for 102 weeks at the theater, with 1,564 performances, 2,173,238 patrons and a gross of $4,872,326.

By the time of Todd's death in a private plane crash, 18 months after the film had opened, it had grossed $33 million.

By November 1958, the film had earned worldwide rentals of $22 million including $4.6 million from overseas from just 280 engagements. None of the overseas engagements at that date had been in Todd-AO.

In Spanish and Latin American posters and programs of the movie, Cantinflas is billed above the other players because he was very popular in Spanish-speaking countries. There were two souvenir programs sold in theatres. For Roadshow screenings Todd-AO is mentioned, though for general release those pages are not contained in the book. The program was created by Todd's publicist, Art Cohn, who died in the plane crash with him. His biography, The Nine Lives of Michael Todd, was published after their deaths which put a macabre spin on the title.

Reception

Critical response

Bosley Crowther called the film a "sprawling conglomeration of refined English comedy, giant-screen travel panoramics and slam-bang Keystone burlesque" and wrote that Todd and the film's crew "commandeered the giant screen and stereophonic sound as though they were Olsen and Johnson turned loose in a cosmic cutting-room, with a pipe organ in one corner and all the movies ever made to toss around".

Time magazine called it "brassy, extravagant, long-winded and funny" and the "Polyphemus of productions," writing "as a travelogue, Around the World is at least as spectacular as anything Cinerama has slapped together". Time highlighted the performance of "the famous Mexican comic, Cantinflas [who in] his first U.S. movie ... gives delightful evidence that he may well be, as Charles Chaplin once said he was, "the world's greatest clown".

Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected 40 reviews and gave the film an aggregate score of 70%, with a rating average of 6/10, with the site's consensus stating: "It's undeniably shallow, but its cheerful lack of pretense -- as well as its grand scale and star-stuffed cast -- help make Around the World in 80 Days charmingly light-hearted entertainment".

The development of the film and the personal life of actor Mario Moreno during that time were dramatized later in the 2014 film Cantinflas.

Accolades

Academy Awards

The film was nominated for eight Oscars, of which it was awarded five, beating out critically and publicly praised films Friendly Persuasion, The Ten Commandments, Giant, and The King and I:

- Won: Best Picture – Michael Todd, producer

- Won: Best Cinematography, Color – Lionel Lindon

- Won: Best Film Editing – Gene Ruggiero and Paul Weatherwax

- Won: Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture – Victor Young

- Won: Best Writing, Best Screenplay, Adapted – John Farrow, S. J. Perelman, and James Poe

- Nominee: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color – Ken Adam, Ross Dowd, and James W. Sullivan

- Nominee: Best Costume Design, Color – Miles White

- Nominee: Best Director – Michael Anderson

Although not nominated for Best Original Song, the film's theme song "Around the World" (music by Victor Young, words by Harold Adamson), became very popular. It was a hit for Bing Crosby in 1957, and was a staple of the easy-listening genre for many years: "Around the world, I searched for you / I traveled on when hope was gone to keep a rendezvous ... No more will I go all around the world / For I have found my world in you." It is also one of the few Best Picture winners not to be nominated in any acting category.

Golden Globes

The film was also nominated for three Golden Globes, of which it was awarded two:

- Won: Best Dramatic Motion Picture – Michael Todd, producer

- Won: Best Motion Actor in a Comedy/Musical Film – Cantinflas

- Nominee: Best Director – Michael Anderson

Other awards

- The film received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Picture and Best Screenplay award for S. J. Perelman.

- The film won the Writers Guild of America Best Written American Comedy award for James Poe, John Farrow and S. J. Perelman.

- The film was screened at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.

Anniversary celebration

On the first anniversary of the film's release, Todd threw a party at the Madison Square Garden attended by 18,000 people; Time magazine called the party a "spectacular flop" though Todd shrugged off the remark, saying "You can't say it was a little bust."The event, featured on a 90-minute CBS telecast, could boast of "a colossal hodgepodge of bagpipers, folk dancers, Philadelphia Mummers, Russian wolfhounds, oxen, Siamese cats, elephants, clowns, a fire engine, and a symphony orchestra."