Mike Todd's version of Jules Verne tale offers a refined English comedy, giant-screen travel landscapes, dazzling brilliant color, famous actors in small roles... as Phileas Fogg and his comical valet made the tour of the world beginning in England, going to Europe, the Middle East, India, and Asia...
It begins in (1872) Victorian London as the wealthy, supremely confident Phileas Fogg sets out a wager that he can traverse the globe in precisely eighty days... The other club members at the Reform Club think Fogg is a fool, and challenge his claim and wager £20,000 that he is wrong...
The snags begin almost immediately, as the true gentleman misses a train and has to travel by balloon... The wild journey takes Fogg and his new servant into a series of incredible adventures in every land they pass through...
David Niven plays the true impassive Englishman Phileas Fogg... A polished man of the world, who makes no superfluous gestures, and is never seen to be moved or agitated... A puzzling personage, who believes in progress, science, and intellectual deduction... An eccentric quiet gentleman who talks very little and lives by a precise schedule of tea, whist games, fish and chips... He lives alone in a big house, and a single domestic sufficed to serve him...
Mexican screen legend Cantinflas known as the comic genius of the Spanish-speaking world, plays Passepartout, the most faithful of domestics...
Passepartout is a multi-skilled honest Frenchman with a pleasant oval face, slender and slight, soft-mannered and serviceable...
Robert Newton plays Mr. Fix, the mysterious detective who had been dispatched from England in search of the bank robber... He is a slight-built personage, with a nervous, intelligent face, and bright eyes peering out from under eyebrows which he is incessantly twitching...
Shirley MacLaine plays the charming young Indian princess, Aouda, who was married against her will at age seven... She speaks English with great purity...
One of the main interests of the film is the various cameos played by stars of the time who give minute but exquisite characterizations:
The other scenes that were actually outrageous and delightful are:
Passepartout scooping some snow off an alp to chill a bottle of champagne; his funny and graceful way of bullfighting; his burlesque dance with a troupe of Spanish dancers; his venture to ride an ostrich through a back-lot Hong Kong; his anxiety when he is captured by savage Sioux; his courage when he is almost burned to death with an Indian widow; his fault when he clears the 'human' pyramid; his ignorance when he breaks Hindus religious beliefs and his absurdity when he constantly tries to hit on anything in skirts...
With terrific music, this Academy Award winner for Best Picture of 1956 is nice for the family to watch...
It begins in (1872) Victorian London as the wealthy, supremely confident Phileas Fogg sets out a wager that he can traverse the globe in precisely eighty days... The other club members at the Reform Club think Fogg is a fool, and challenge his claim and wager £20,000 that he is wrong...
The snags begin almost immediately, as the true gentleman misses a train and has to travel by balloon... The wild journey takes Fogg and his new servant into a series of incredible adventures in every land they pass through...
David Niven plays the true impassive Englishman Phileas Fogg... A polished man of the world, who makes no superfluous gestures, and is never seen to be moved or agitated... A puzzling personage, who believes in progress, science, and intellectual deduction... An eccentric quiet gentleman who talks very little and lives by a precise schedule of tea, whist games, fish and chips... He lives alone in a big house, and a single domestic sufficed to serve him...
Mexican screen legend Cantinflas known as the comic genius of the Spanish-speaking world, plays Passepartout, the most faithful of domestics...
Passepartout is a multi-skilled honest Frenchman with a pleasant oval face, slender and slight, soft-mannered and serviceable...
Robert Newton plays Mr. Fix, the mysterious detective who had been dispatched from England in search of the bank robber... He is a slight-built personage, with a nervous, intelligent face, and bright eyes peering out from under eyebrows which he is incessantly twitching...
Shirley MacLaine plays the charming young Indian princess, Aouda, who was married against her will at age seven... She speaks English with great purity...
One of the main interests of the film is the various cameos played by stars of the time who give minute but exquisite characterizations:
- Finlay Currie, Mr. Fogg's usual partner at whist...
- Robert Morley, one of the directors of the Bank of England...
- John Gielgud, the dismissed servant who relates that his master wears two watches, and every available surface in his house is covered with so many clocks...
- Trevor Howard, the club's member who rejects the news that the English gentleman has robbed the Bank of England...
- Charles Boyer, the educated travel agent who proposes to the couple to travel with a hot-air balloon...
- Martine Carol, the offended lady who slaps the new butler just for saying: 'Mademoiselle!'
- Fernandel, the French coachman who was not so content with the tip...
- Gilbert Roland, the Arab who offers his ship to Marseilles just on one condition...
- Cesar Romero, the henchman who sadistically insists Passepartout must fight a bull even if he doesn't know how...
- Ronald Colman, the Railway Official who announces (No more railway!) all passengers know that they must provide means of transportation for themselves from Kholby to Allahabad...
- Cedric Hardwicke, the officer who finds happily a means of conveyance : to cross the deep jungle on an elephant!
- Charles Coburn, the Steamship Company clerk who makes the observation that the 'Carnatic' had sailed the evening before...and he doesn't expect any vessel to Yokohama one week from now...
- Peter Lorre, the smiling Japanese steward who informs Passepartout that being broke without money in Yokohama... is catastrophic!
- Glynis Johns, the sporting lady who bets with her companion on Fogg's outcome...
- George Raft, the suspicious mob who chases everyone who stands near his glamorous woman...
- Marlene Dietrich, the Barbary Coast saloon hostess who looks for a way to be free...
- Frank Sinatra, the honky-tonk pianist...
- Red Skelton, the drunken with great appetite...
- John Carradine, the insolent colonel hit by an arrow...
- Buster Keaton, the American train conductor who announces some delay...
- Andy Devine, the first mate who refuses 'Henrietta' to be burn...
- Victor McLaglen, the helmsman who is ordered ('Full steam!') to feed all the fires until the coal is exhausted...
- John Mills, the sleepy carriage driver at the delicate moment...
The other scenes that were actually outrageous and delightful are:
Passepartout scooping some snow off an alp to chill a bottle of champagne; his funny and graceful way of bullfighting; his burlesque dance with a troupe of Spanish dancers; his venture to ride an ostrich through a back-lot Hong Kong; his anxiety when he is captured by savage Sioux; his courage when he is almost burned to death with an Indian widow; his fault when he clears the 'human' pyramid; his ignorance when he breaks Hindus religious beliefs and his absurdity when he constantly tries to hit on anything in skirts...
With terrific music, this Academy Award winner for Best Picture of 1956 is nice for the family to watch...