Watching Oscar: Around the World in 80 Days

Film: Around the World in 80 Days
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

When a film wins an Oscar for anything, some people are going to be upset. In retrospect, though, few choices for Best Picture have been as rethought and questioned as the 1956 winner, Around the World in 80 Days. It is very much a film in that classic Hollywood vein slightly after the true golden era of film, and that’s likely one of the reasons it captured the top spot. It was also ably assisted by a very weak field.

The film is a screen adaptation of the book of the same name by Jules Verne, and it’s no different than the title suggests. For a film that runs around three hours long, it’s remarkably easy to sum up. A British gentleman named Phileas Fogg (David Niven) undertakes a bet with several other gentlemen of his club. The bet is that, in the time of the film (the mid-1870s) it would be possible to circumnavigate the globe in precisely 80 days. The men accept the bet and Fogg heads off taking with him a suitcase full of cash and his new manservant, Passepartout (Cantinflas). Coincidentally at the same time, a daring robbery of the Bank of England has taken place, and Fogg’s behavior seems suspicious. So, Mr. Fix (Robert Newton) pursues Fogg around the globe in the hopes of bringing him to justice for a crime that Fogg (of course) didn’t commit.