‘Around the World in 80 Days’ Won Best Picture?
Tags: Movies, Film Reviews, Oscars, Classic Films, Around The World

‘Around the World in 80 Days’ Won Best Picture?

If sweeping panoramas of strolling locals are your thing, here you go

Cantinflas and David Niven, from left, star in the 1957 Best Picture winner “Around the World in 80 Days,” based on a story by Jules Verne. Photo courtesy of United Artists

By Todd Hill

We cinephiles may pride ourselves on seeing as many movies as possible each year, but we’ll never be able to see everything. Even limiting ourselves to just those films released (or simply made) in the U.S. during our lifetime leaves more titles than we’ll ever be able to see.

Sure, you could get a handle on this dilemma by narrowing your watch list down to all the Oscar nominees for Best Picture, a doable chunk of 563 films (as of 2020), but do you really want to track down all those obscure pictures from the 1930’s? Good luck even finding some of them today. There are good reasons why many are no longer in circulation.

OK, so how about just the Best Picture winners, a mere 92 through 2020? If you start with this year and work backwards, chances are you’ve already seen several of the movies so you can just sail right on through the list. But still, you’re bound to eventually make it to the Best Picture winner of 1957, when everything’s going to come to a crashing halt.

That was the year the top Oscar went to “Around the World in 80 Days,” considered by many the worst movie ever to receive the honor. I think labeling it the worst is a bit harsh. But dullest? I can’t think of a duller one.

At the time of its release, the film’s producer, Michael Todd, insisted that “Around the World in 80 Days” wasn’t a movie but an event, and he was right. Now that the spectacle of the event has faded from all memory and all we’re left with is the movie, it’s more clear than ever that he was right. But this distinction also explains how the film won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Based on the story by Jules Verne, “Around the World in 80 Days” follows a British gentleman and his French valet across the globe in 1872 as they scurry to win a bet that they can accomplish, well, the title of the film. And this they do, although the only real doubt that they can occurs at the very end of the movie when they’re back home in London but in the wrong part of town with the deadline just minutes away. That’s a long time for an audience to wait for the first sign of life in a nearly three-hour-long motion picture remarkably free of any semblance of drama or suspense.

The movie’s defenders — and there are a few — may acknowledge all of the above, only to then shoot back with, “Yes, but the spectacle of it all!” And they have a point.

It’s no exaggeration to claim that “Around the World in 80 Days” features a cast of thousands — the official total is 68,894. To clothe them, 74,685 costumes were made, the most for a single film in Hollywood history. And the movie was shot on 140 locations, which is insane. Ambition this boundless would be prohibitively expensive today.

To his credit, Todd made sure it all found its way to the screen, but scene after scene is grindingly flat and static, consisting of little more than sweeping panoramas filled with strolling locals. An early sequence high in a hot-air balloon has visual potential, but never gets off the ground. A Spanish bullfight, filmed with the entire population of a small Spanish town sitting in the arena, drags on forever; even the bull looks bored. And so on.

For the record, starring as the central character Phileas Fogg is David Niven, who does little more than play whist and appear in countless reaction shots until late in the movie when he proposes marriage to an Indian princess he’s traveled with for 12,000 miles but barely spoken to. The Indian princess is played by Shirley MacLaine. This was before the time of ethnically correct casting, so she probably deserves a pass. Besides, she wears a dark wig. I hope MacLaine enjoyed all the sightseeing, as she hardly had any lines to learn.

The star of the show, for all intents and purposes, is Cantinflas, a charming Mexican comedian with a funny moustache who portrays the valet, Passepartout. It’s impossible for any one performer to carry a production this bloated, but Cantinflas is the only actor in the film given the chance to act. Todd was clearly more interested in populating his picture with dozens of gimmicky cameo appearances (John Gielgud, Noel Coward, Cesar Romero, Peter Lorre, Buster Keaton, Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, George Raft, John Carradine, and so on). Remember, this was an event, not a movie.

So, how did “Around the World in 80 Days” win Best Picture? Consider the other nominees in 1957 — “The King and I,” “The Ten Commandments,” “Friendly Persuasion” and “Giant.” All but one of the nominees that year was a larger-than-life spectacle.The one that wasn’t — “Friendly Persuasion” — is perhaps the most enjoyable viewing experience today, but times have changed. In the late 1950’s, an era of comfort and abundance in America, bigger was better. Michael Todd, indeed everyone associated with “Around the World in 80 Days,” understood this and was rewarded accordingly.

If you’re brave, or foolhardy, enough to take on the challenge of watching all the Oscar winners for Best Picture, you may be in for some long hours, but the cultural history lesson you’ll receive will be invaluable.

Todd Hill is a former journalist with 30 years of experience, much of it in film criticism, who misses neither journalism nor the film beat.