Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Steineded How sad is this?

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

boblipton Is Around the World in 80 Days a good movie? The more I look at it, the more I think it isn't. Artistically it is all over the shop and strikes me as the sort of thing that a bunch of 3-year-olds on crack would do if they had the relevant skills. Look! It's Cantinflas! (who?) and John Gielgud in the same scene! Now it's a travelogue and they're in France, headed to Spain by accident. Let's have Jose Greco do some flamenco and Gilbert Roland will save the day after the bull ring! Doesn't Robert Newton know that David Niven is a good guy? Nice music! I didn't know Shirley Maclaine was Indian. Nice picture of a dhow at sunset! Who's that guy, daddy? Watch Buster Keaton run the train over the bridge just before it collapses. Why does Passepartoute never mention to his boss that Fix intends to arrest him, first chance he gets? Hey! Elephants!And so on and so on. It's exhausting, like trying to keep a box score on three baseball games while you're in a boxing match. Verne knew this when he was writing the novel. He knew his inexplicable (to the French) clockwork Englishman, the sort who doesn't have any training, but nonetheless goes out and does the impossible on a whim was unstoppable, except by another Englishman. Otherwise, the whole thing turns into a travelogue in which Fogg overcomes the random, feeble efforts of nature and man to stop him, and the surprise ending. Until then, there really isn't much of interest going on. Until Fix shows up, it's all straightforward and dull. Hey look! It's Ronald Colman and Bea Lillie! Thing is, they distract you from all that, with the pictures and cameos. It's great spectacle. It's just not a particularly good movie.

petra_ste Everyone enjoys taking a cheap shot at the Academy Awards, and this movie offers a great chance to do just that - Around the World in Eighty Days won Best Picture, while in the same year John Ford's The Searchers, one of the most iconic classics in the history of American cinema, didn't receive a single nomination.Around the World is three hours long, and feels like it. Every few minutes the movie stops to gawk at its exotic locations and smugly chuckle at its endless celebrity cameos ("Look, isn't it funny that the saloon pianist is Frank Sinatra?"). It has certainly aged badly. I remember enjoying it as a kid thirty years ago; rewatching it recently, I was surprised by how overlong it feels. I had a similar reaction to another on-the-road adventure/comedy of the same era, The Great Race, except the latter is propelled even today by Jack Lemmon's villainous glee as Professor Fate and by the sight of the adorable Natalie Wood in her lingerie. Around the World features also-adorable Shirley MacLaine - but, distractingly, she is unlikely cast as an Indian princess.Overall, though, this Jules Verne adaptation isn't a bad movie - a mildly entertaining travelogue with luscious vistas and a tone-perfect David Niven as a British gentleman so prim and fastidious that, if you tossed a couple of eggs in his luggage, two minutes later he would produce from it still immaculate clothes and a perfectly cooked omelet on a silver platter. In fact, Around the World is at its best when it focuses on Niven's Phileas Fogg dryly dealing with annoyances, obstacles and threats, and at its worst when it pauses to showcase the physical skills of co-star Cantinflas as Passepartout - so we have a dancing number, a bullfighting number, a circus number, and so on.The result is drawn-out; we complain that Peter Jackson added at least a whole hour of bloat in each Hobbit movie, but Hollywood was already doing that sixty years ago.6/10

k-thomas This was movie making at it's best. Unlike the movies of today. Fine Acting, Photography, Costumes, Filming, Script and especially the who's who in the movie world doing their cameos. In my view the finest performance came from Robert Newton, who in my view stole the picture. It was reminiscent of his performance as Long John Silver in Treasure Island. Just as devious. Young children of today enjoy this version, even though they have been brought up on the Jackie Chan version, which is far inferior. David Niven himself stated that this was his favorite film and i can see why. I would also imagine that the participants all had a great time.A true masterpiece.

weezeralfalfa I clearly remember when this was released. The exotic locales and numerous frustrating impediments to achieving the goal of circumnavigating the world in 80 days, in 1872, by various conventional and unconventional means, climaxed by the unexpected ending, provided a generally exciting drama for a kid of those times. The cameo appearances of various very well known or somewhat familiar actors added to the appeal, as did the very memorable theme song. You have to remember that nearly all TVs were B&W then, and travelogue programs weren't that numerous.This film was the baby of the innovative, compulsive gambling, Mike Todd: his only conventional feature film that he produced, which needed to be a big financial success to wipe out his massive debts from gambling and lavish lifestyle. Having previously financed a stage version of the subject, which was a big financial flop, he nearly went bankrupt before finishing this promising version. Having previously been involved in the commercialization of the 3-camera Cinerama film process, Todd had joined with American Optical Company to develop a single camera wide angle version, which included 6 sound tracts, dubbed Todd-AO, which was first used in the production of the spectacularly successful musical "Oklahoma". It's second use was for the present film. We can readily see the influence of Todd's experience with Cinerama in the splendid travelogue visuals. In recent times, TCM has shown this film occasionally. I stopped to rewatch it in it's entirety. David Niven was, of course, perfect for the role of the unbelievably stiff, robotic, Fogg, who represents an extreme version of the time, speed, and money-obsessed modern man. Inexplicably, he hires his virtual opposite in the happy-go-lucky Latino Passepartout(Cantinflas) as his valet and traveling companion., who provides a window into various adventures in various exotic lands that the ever robotic Fogg couldn't provide....Robert Newton has a typical villain role, as a detective, who is sure Fogg was the mastermind behind a large Bank of London heist, the day before Fogg left on the journey. This clearly non-aristocratic sleuth is bent on foiling Fogg's attempt to circle the globe on time to win the prize, as well as arresting him at a convenient time. By forcing Fogg to spend a night in jail in London at the terminus of the journey, before learning that he was not the guilty party, Newton's Mr. Fix is finally clearly fingered as the chief villain of the tale, saved only by Cantinflas's subsequent discovery that it's a day earlier than Fogg assumed. This was Newton's last film role, after establishing himself as the archetypical pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy, in several pirate films. It was clear that his liver wouldn't hold out much longer. Too bad, as he was such a charismatic heavy.As she later admitted, Shirley MacLaine was miscast as the very young Indian widow rescued by Fogg from being forced to burn to death atop her deceased husband's funeral pyre. She didn't look or speak anything like a typical Indian, and she contributed virtually nothing to the interest of the film, after her rescue by Continflas. True, her part was underwritten. The suggestion of a marriage with Fogg , at the end, looks problematic. She is grateful for his? rescue and addition to the traveling group. He seems agreeable, perhaps out of pity. I just wonder if a middle-aged man of his extreme type could alter his persona sufficiently to make an appealing mate, aside from his obvious wealth(of undetermined origin). Just what he normally did with his time is left unexplored.Like the subsequent "Moon River", the theme song "Around the World" is a very memorable soothing inspirational waltz, which was played ad nauseam throughout the film as background, including multiple arrangements during the intermission. Unlike "Moon River", it very surprisingly wasn't nominated for Best Original Film Song. I suspect this is partly because no lyrics were sung during the film, although they soon appeared in various single recordings released. However, Victor Young did receive the Oscar for best original score in a non-musical, and since this was the only original song in the film, this serves as sort of a consolation award for the song. I consider it more addictive than "Moon River", and I'm sure it added significantly to the case for voting this as the best film of the year.The section where the party is trying to make their way across the western US comes across as sort of a western, including several encounters with Native Americans while on a train, a loudmouthed trigger-happy pest in John Carridine, a near train wreck while crossing a rickety trestle being destroyed by flood waters, and an improvised sail--powered(supposedly) rail maintenance hand car, when no train was available in the near term. Incidentally, sail-powered rail cars were tried in the early days of rails, but proved impractical. Fogg's bunch presumably lucked out in having a steady prairie wind in the desired direction. Incidentally, the aristocratic Reform Club, of which Fogg was a member, and which was the initiator of the prize for achieving his goal, is based upon a real London club, whose original purpose was to promote reform of the House of Commons, later to become a bastion of the Liberal Party.