Around the World in 80 Days

Movie Review: Around the World in 80 Days

Year of Release: 1956
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Michael Anderson
Cast: David Niven, Mario Moreno "Cantinflas", Shirley MacLaine, Robert Newton

Plot outline: A Victorian Englishman bets that with the new steamships and railways he can do what the title says (IMDb).

This mammoth and mad pictorial rendering of the classic novel by Jules Verne is a sprawling conglomeration of refined English comedy, giant-screen travel panoramics and slam-bang Keystone burlesque. It makes like a wild adventure picture and, with some forty famous actors in "bit" roles, it also takes on the characteristic of a running recognition game. It is noisy with sound effects and music. It is also overwhelmingly large in the process. It runs for two hours fifty-five minutes (not counting an intermission). And it is, undeniably, quite a show. Whether the cinema purists will immediately and gratefully concede that the producer has improved the breed of movies is something else again. The unities of content and method are not detectable in his splattered form. He and his people have commandeered the giant screen and stereophonic sound, turned loose in a cosmic cutting-room, with a pipe organ in one corner and all the movies ever made to toss around. The eccentric pattern, thus established, is continued expansively. There is naught but extravagant improvising in the subsequent adventures of Phileas Fogg (David Niven). Once he and his comical valet, the non-decript Passepartout (Mario Moreno "Cantinflas"), are launched on their wagered endeavor to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days, the wraps are off. Anything can happen. And many varieties of things do. Outside of David Niven and "Cantinflas", there are Shirley MacLaine as Princess Aouda; Robert Newton as Fix, the detective; and an assortment of bit players ranging from Noel Coward as a British employment agent to Jack Oakie as the captain of the S. S. Henrietta. Even so, all and sundry play their roles honorably. Is the whole thing too exhausting? It's a question of how much you can take.

My judgement: **1/2 out 4 stars