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, Cantinflas, Robert Newton, and Shirley MacLaine, produced by the Michael Todd Company and released by United Artists.
The 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 (processed by 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 five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Plot Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow presents an onscreen prologue, featuring footage from A Trip to the Moon (1902) film made 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 claims he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. Met with scepticism, he makes a £20,000 wager (worth about £ today) with four fellow members of the Reform Club (each contributing £5,000 to the bet) that he can make the journey and arrive back at the club eighty days from exactly 8:45 pm that evening.
Together with his resourceful French valet, Passepartout, 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. Having reached Paris they hear that a tunnel under the Alps is blocked. The Thomas Cook agent who assists them offers to hire or sell them his gas-filled balloon. Fogg buys it and they fly over the Alps drinking champagne.
Blown off-course, the two accidentally end up in Spain, where we see a table-top flamenco sequence performed in a bar. Later, Passepartout engages in a comic bullfight. Next, they go to Brindisi in Italy. Meanwhile, back in London, suspicion grows that Fogg has stolen £55,000 (around £ today) from the Bank of England so Police Inspector Fix is sent out by Scotland Yard to trail him (starting in Suez) but must keep waiting for a warrant to arrive so he can arrest Fogg in the British-controlled ports they visit.
In India, Fogg and Passepartout rescue a beautiful young widow Aouda from being forced into a funeral pyre with her late husband. The three then travel to Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, and the Wild West (including the Sioux Nation, one was peaceful and the other are fearsome). Reaching New York by their man-made sailing railcar, they arrange their passage on a cargo steamship travelling to Venezuela – Fogg bribes the captain to go to England. Alas, they run out of coal mid-ocean and the ship stops. Fogg buys the ship and then instructs the crew to take everything that burns, including lifeboats, to provide fuel.
They arrive in Liverpool, where, still with just enough time left to travel to London and win his wager, Fogg is promptly arrested by the diligent yet misguided Inspector Fix.
Detaining Fogg at the police station, the embarrassed Fix discovers that the real culprit has already been apprehended by police in Brighton. Although Fogg is exculpated and free to go, he now has insufficient time to reach London before his deadline, and so has lost everything but the enduring love of the winsome Aouda. Upon returning to London, Fogg asks Passepartout to arrange a church wedding for the next day, Monday. Salvation comes when Passepartout is shocked to be informed that the next day is actually Sunday. Fogg then realizes that by traveling east towards the rising sun and crossing the International Date Line, he has gained a day. Thus, there is still just enough time to reach the Reform Club and win the bet. Fogg rushes to the club, arriving just before the 8:45 pm chime. Passepartout and Aouda then arrive behind him, inadvertently shocking everyone, as no woman has ever entered the Reform Club before.
Cast David Niven as Phileas Fogg Cantinflas as Passepartout Shirley MacLaine as Princess Aouda Robert Newton as Inspector Fix
Cameo appearances
Edward R. Murrow as the prologue narrator Finlay Currie as Andrew Stuart, Reform Club member Robert Morley as Gauthier Ralph, Reform Club member and Bank of England Governor Ronald Squire as a Reform Club member Basil Sydney as a Reform Club member Noël Coward as Roland Hesketh-Baggott, London employment agency manager Sir John Gielgud as Foster, Fogg's former valet Trevor Howard as Denis Fallentin, Reform Club member Harcourt Williams as Hinshaw, a Reform Club steward Martine Carol as a girl in the Paris railway station Fernandel as a Paris coachman Charles Boyer as Monsieur Gasse, balloonist Evelyn Keyes as a Paris flirt Jose Greco & Troupe as a flamenco dancer Luis Dominguin as a bullfighter Gilbert Roland as Achmed Abdullah Cesar Romero as Abdullah's henchman Alan Mowbray as the British Consul at Suez Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Sir Francis Cromarty Melville Cooper as Mr. Talley, steward on the RMS Rangoon Reginald Denny as a Bombay police inspector Ronald Colman as a Great Indian Peninsular Railway official Robert Cabal as an elephant driver-guide Charles Coburn as a Hong Kong steamship company clerk Peter Lorre as a steward on the SS Carnatic George Raft as the bouncer of the Barbary Coast Saloon Red Skelton as a drunk at the saloon Marlene Dietrich as the saloon hostess John Carradine as Col. Stamp Proctor of San Francisco Frank Sinatra as the saloon pianist Buster Keaton as a train conductor (San Francisco to Fort Kearney) Col. Tim McCoy as a US Cavalry Colonel Joe E. Brown as the Fort Kearney stationmaster Andy Devine as the first mate of the SS Henrietta Edmund Lowe as the engineer of the SS Henrietta Victor McLaglen as the helmsman of the SS Henrietta Jack Oakie as the Captain of the SS Henrietta Beatrice Lillie as a London revivalist leader John Mills as a London carriage driver Glynis Johns as a Sporting Lady Hermione Gingold as a Sporting Lady A. E. Matthews as a Reform Club member Ronald Adam as a Reform Club steward Walter Fitzgerald as a Reform Club member Frank Royde as a clergyman Frederick Leister as a Reform Club member (uncredited) Mike Mazurki as a Hong Kong drunk (uncredited) Richard Wattis as Inspector Hunter of Scotland Yard (uncredited) Keye Luke as an old man at Yokohama travel office (uncredited) Felix Felton as a Reform Club member (uncredited) Philip Ahn as Hong Kong citizen (uncredited) Marion Ross (uncredited) James Dime
Production
Around the World in 80 Days was produced by Broadway showman Michael Todd, based on a musical by Orson WellesWelles, Orson; Bogdanovich, Peter; Rosenbaum, Jonathan (1992). This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-0060166168 and Jules Verne's adventure novel. Todd 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 1971 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 had 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 of film, which was edited down to 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, Spain, India, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Thailand, Japan, and the United States. 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 bison, 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.Turner Classic Movies introduction to the film, February 10, 2019.
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, from Madrid, but Todd decided there were not enough spectators, so he found 3,500 more from nearby towns. He used 650 Native Americans for a fight on a train in the West. Many were indeed Native American, but some were Hollywood extras. All 650 had their skin color altered with dye. Todd used about 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 did not 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. The "American" ship is the Japanese training barque Kaiwo Maru. 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.Stimson, Thomas E., Jr. "Move Magic and Illusions Take You Around The World in Eighty Days." Popular Mechanics, August 1956, 65-69.