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.
Around the World in 80 Days was produced by Broadway showman Michael Todd based on a book by Orson Welles.[13] Todd had never before produced a film.[1] 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.[14]
il giro del mondo in 80 giorni film 1956 download
Download File: https://urlcod.com/2vJHi3
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.[17]
The film premiered on October 17, 1956, at the Rivoli Theater in New York City[19] and played to full houses for 15 months. It ran for 102 weeks at the theatre, with 1,564 performances, 2,173,238 patrons and a gross of $4,872,326.[20]
Except for the horrible miscasting of Shirley MacLaine as a Hindu princess, Around the World in 80 Days comes close to being a perfect film. The rest of the cast paints to perfection the portrait of Jules Verne's odyssey about a very anal retentive man driven by a wager to complete a global circumnavigation in 80 days in the mid nineteenth century.Jules Verne unlike in a lot of his other stories makes one of his main characters here a Frenchman. Normally the international minded Mr. Verne never had any of his protagonists come from his native France. In this case the valet Passepartout accompanies English gentleman Phileas Fogg on the journey and comes close to wrecking it a couple of times.Michael Todd had to settle for second choices for both of his leads. The part was originally offered to Cary Grant who turned it down and Todd settled happily for David Niven. And even though Fernandel offered to learn English to play Passepartout, the process would have taken too long so the Mexican comic star Cantinfas got the part. Fernandel did have a small role as a Parisian hansom cab driver.It's still a mystery to me as to why Cantinflas on the strength of this and Pepe did not break out of the Latin American market where he was nothing short of a demi-god of the cinema. Certainly his presence in this film opened up a huge market of viewers in the Spanish speaking parts of the world. Also consider that the probably no other performer in the history of the cinema ever got as good supporting casts as Cantinflas did in both Around the World in 80 Days and Pepe. Maybe he didn't break into the English speaking cinema fan world, but it was no accident that all the stars who appeared in both wanted to be associated with him.Shirley MacLaine would have to wait until Some Came Running for a real break out role. She's just not the type to play a Hindu princess. Someone like Jean Simmons who played one in Black Narcissus would have been far better. David Niven however got on the crest of a big career wave that wouldn't reach maximum until his Oscar two years later in Separate Tables. This was one of his best career roles and nice that for once he would not have to carry a mediocre picture on the strength of his considerable charm.Mr. Niven sadly recalls in his memoirs that Robert Newton was already dying when he made Around the World in 80 Days. The doctors had told the screen's most celebrated alcoholic that he had only a short time left when he did this film, his liver was failing. Newton does a grand job as the unctuous conniving detective Fix who gets it into his head that Niven robbed the Bank of England.Around the World in 80 Days won for Best Picture in 1956 and four other Oscars including best musical score. Oddly enough the song Around the World was not nominated in that category even though it was a big hit that year. Bing Crosby for Decca and Eddie Fisher for RCA Victor had the big hit records of it, Frank Sinatra also did it for Capitol. It was a great tribute to its composer Victor Young and lyricist Harold Adamson. Young died in 1956 and the Oscar for Best Scoring was given to him posthumously.Producer Michael Todd and Director Michael Anderson did a first rate job in casting all the small bit roles with major players. A lot of these names are unfamiliar to today's generation, but if they see the film it's a chance to see a lot of great cinema names at one time doing real characters instead of just walking on as themselves.The film holds up well today and can still be enjoyed. Maybe someone will actually try to make it in the transportation mode of the Victorian era. Can it be done in 80 Days?
2ff7e9595c
Comments