Around the World in 80 Days

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

It's a wonderful world, if you'll only take the time to go around it!

Based on the famous book by Jules Verne the movie follows Phileas Fogg on his journey around the world. Which has to be completed within 80 days, a very short period for those days.

Date of release
1956-10-17
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (615)
Runtime
3h 2m
Genres
Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Romance
Director
Michael Anderson

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $42M
  • Budget: $6M
  • Earned 7× its budget
  • Based on: Around the World in Eighty Days
  • Filmed in: Madrid, Japan, Sylhet, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Bangkok, Sylhet and 4 more
  • Awards: 7 · Nominations: 8. Including: Academy Award for Best Picture; Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color; Academy Award for Best Film Editing; Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay

Around the World in 80 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.

Production

Around the World in 80 Days was produced by Broadway showman Michael Todd, based on a musical by Orson Welles and Jules Verne's adventure novel. Todd had never before produced a film. 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.

Because Todd-AO ran at 30 frames per second, which was incompatible with the 35mm standard of 24 fps, Around the World in 80 Days was filmed twice, like the first feature in Todd-AO, Oklahoma!. Unlike Oklahoma!, however, which was filmed additionally in 35mm CinemaScope, Around the World in 80 Days was filmed simultaneously in Todd-AO at 24 frames per second so that from this negative, 35mm reduction prints could be produced for general release.

In his 1971 autobiographical book The Moon's a Balloon, actor David Niven discussed his meeting with Todd and the subsequent events that led to the film being produced. According to Niven, when Todd asked him if he would appear as Fogg, Niven enthusiastically replied, 'I'd do it for nothing!' He later admitted to being grateful that Todd did not hold him to his claim.

Filming took place in late 1955, from August 9 to December 20. The crew worked fast (75 actual days of filming), producing 680,000 feet (210,000 m) of film, which was edited down to 25,734 feet (7,844 m) of finished film. The picture cost just under $6 million to make, employing 112 locations in 13 countries and 140 sets.

Some 10,000 extras were used in filming the bullfight scene in Spain, with Cantinflas as the matador; Cantinflas had previously done some bullfighting. They used all 6,500 residents of a small Spanish town called Chinchón, 45 kilometres (28 mi) from Madrid, but Todd decided there were not enough spectators, so he found 3,500 more from nearby towns. He used 650 Native Americans for a fight on a train in the West.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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