OSCAR WILD DAY 10: AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956)

To say that that this film hasn’t aged well is generous. Yes, it is an adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel of the same name. Yes, it’s a veritable who’s who with dozens of stars lined up for cameos. Yes, it’s clean, wholesome, escapist entertainment for all ages. But it’s also more than a little boring throughout its bloated runtime.

The year is 1872, and technological advances have Phileas Fogg (David Niven) convinced that a man can circumnavigate the world in just 80 days. He’s so sure of his theory that wagers an enormous sum of money with four members of the private club he belongs to that he himself is capable of the feat. Together with his French servant Passepartout (Cantinflas), Fogg embarks on a unique adventure spanning continents and cultures.

In theory, this kind of cheeky travelogue should be a lot of fun to watch. Some sequences do dazzle the eyes a bit, but the story itself unfolds at too slow a pace. W
ide shots and what could be called stock footage gloss over large stretches of Fogg’s journey, while some of the major scenes involve sets and backdrops that fail to convince the mind that the action is happening outside of a studio set. When our protagonists pick up a third member of their party by rescuing an Indian widow, the film shows its age by having Shirley MacLaine perform in brownface, further hampering the film’s sense of authenticity.

Phileas Fogg doesn’t make for a strong protagonist. When you stop and think about it, he is really just a rich man trying to win a rich man’s bet. He spends quite a bit of the film seemingly unimpressed by the journey he is on, thinking only of his next move to return to London in time to win the bet. His servant and companion on the journey, Passepartout, is the kind of comic relief that was already becoming a stretch by the mid-1950s. Mexican comedian Cantinflas throws a lot of physicality into the part, but too much of it feels more like vaudeville slapstick than anything new or original. That may work for the 1870s setting, but it was already a bit behind the times for the 1950s when it was released, and it feels very dated now.

A lot can be done with pride and money as motivating factors for a story. Unfortunately, Around the World in 80 Days never gets past the point of being a quaint journey. To spend so much time for so little character growth to come as a result is a tad underwhelming. Some of the location shots and scenes add enough pizazz and visual splendor to make this film ever so slightly above average. I haven’t read Verne’s book, so I cannot evaluate it as an adaptation, but as a film, it will likely only entertain the very youngest and oldest of audiences, who may marvel at its simple wonders for different reasons. The rest of us periodically gaze at our watches to see how close we are to the journey’s end.

As for its Oscar merits, it was the #2 box office draw for 1956 (but The Greatest Show on Earth was the top-grossing film of its respective year, so this distinction doesn’t carry much weight). Maybe the Academy felt they couldn’t give the Oscar to The Ten Commandments because they awarded Cecil B. DeMille for an inferior film just a few years prior (the aforementioned Greatest Show). Giant won the award for Best Director, and this film earned zero acting nominations but cleaned up the more technical categories, so it’s not like it was a runaway favorite. I don’t see how this wins over The Ten Commandments, a film that is all but timeless, but maybe there was some strange combination of vote-splitting among the other nominees. Unfortunately, we’re left with a film that, popular as it may have been, doesn’t reach the artistic heights of the company it finds itself in as a Best Picture winner. It’s not the weakest, but it’s not too far from it.

FINAL RATING: 2.75 out of 5