Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

Using Jules Verne’s novel about modern transportation and the resultant “shrinking globe” James Poe John Farrow and S.J. Perelman won an Oscar for their adapted screenplay. Producer (& Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband) Michael Todd whose film technique Todd-AO was used for only the second time in this movie won his only Oscar (he was killed less than a year later in a plane crash). In addition to winning Best Picture the comedy adventure won three other Oscars and was nominated for three more including for its director Michael Anderson (his only nomination from the Academy). David Niven plays the adventurous perfectionist Phileas Fogg and Cantinflas plays his newly hired multi-talented and resourceful manservant Passepartout. British gentleman Fogg bets fellow members of his club (Finlay Currie Robert Morley Noel Coward and Trevor Howard) that he can circle the globe in 80 days. Robert Newton is Mr. Fix who knows nothing of the bet but is intent on catching and/or stopping Fogg because he believes that the adventurer is a thief. Shirley MacLaine plays a princess from India – that Fogg and Passepartout rescue from death – who travels with them for most of their trip. Among those that Todd was able to convince to appear in the film were Sir John Gielgud as a manservant Charles Boyer as a travel agent Jose Greco as a flamenco dancer (now there’s a stretch) Cesar Romero as MacLaine’s would-be executioner Alan Mowbray as a government official Sir Cedric Hardwicke Melville Cooper Reginald Denny Ronald Colman as a railway official Charles Coburn as a steamship clerk Peter Lorre as a steward George Raft as a saloon bouncer Red Skelton as a drunk that enjoys the saloon’s free food with Cantinflas Marlene Dietrich as the saloon’s hostess that Raft loves to protect John Carradine as a blowhard Kentucky Colonel Frank Sinatra as the saloon’s pianist Buster Keaton as a train conductor Joe E. Brown as the station master Andy Devine Victor McLaglen and Jack Oakie as shipmates John Mills as a carriage driver Glynis Johns and Hermione Gingold as sporting ladies and Edward R. Murrow as himself.

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