I know it’s a classic. I’ve always heard of this movie, but never caught it on TV nor rented it. What’s the premise…is it a race, or the determination of one apsiring individual? Is the movie worth renting??? - Jinx
It’s based on the Jules Verne novel of the same title. Phileas Fogg is a very honorable Englishman who takes a Times newspaper article at face value and bets his fellow clubmates that he can go around the world in 80 days, now that a new railroad in India has gone through. His clubmates take him up on it, and he leraves that afternoon with his startled manservant, Passepartout. Unfortunately, Inspector Fixx of Scotland Yard thinks that Fogg is a bank robber who has just made a record robbery, and determines to stop him.
It was Verne at his quirky best, explaining and showing off obscure trivia about countries while setting up problems for his hero and having them solved. There’s a wonderful twist at the end.
I suspect the movie you’re referring to is Michael Todd’s widecsreen film version from circa 1960. It should properly have been seen in a widescreen theater. (It used the Todd-AO system, I think, although it might have been Cinerama. But it wasn’t the standard anamorphic systems we use today). It’s appeal was that it had a huge number of cameos in it, and played up the humor. Look for Frank Sinatra as a piano player.
There was a TV version with, I think, Pierce Brosnan, which you should avoid.
There was also the PBS series with Michael Palin in which he, too, goes around the world in 80 days. Very well done, and worth viewing. It sparked his other PBS series, Pole to Pole and Full Circle and Hemingway Adventure.
Don’t waste your time with movies or tv series, nothing beats the original, specially if it was written by Verne. Read the book. And then read everything he wrote (or at least most)
A note, by the way: The Verne book does not have them travelling in a balloon at any point. They consider it for crossing the Atlantic, but decide that it’s too risky. I think that the movie probably took that part from Six Weeks in a Balloon, which was Verne’s first book.
And another vote for the book here, by the way. Even speaking as a fan of Verne and SF in general, I think it was his best work.
I heartily agree with those who say to avoid the TV series. The movie was fun, but still not really true to the book. The book is best. The only thing I couldn’t figure out about the “twist” at the end was how a man as intelligent as Fogg was could have forgotten about the issue, especially with the clue that his servant’s watch gave him.
I think the Palen show is worth watching. (he does travel in balloon for a bit and does mention that it didn’t happen in the book)
The ending was a bit anticlimactic
They wouln’t let him in the building where he started
Brian
The movie is remembered now for 2 reasons: (1) the huge number of cameos, none of which will mean anything unless you’re familiar with old movies, and (2) it inexplicably won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1956 (the joke being that it won because everyone who was in it voted for it).
Then again, its competition was a gaggle of lavish, colorful, largely empty-headed epics (the first time all 5 Best Picture nominees were in color). By contrast, this was the year Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai was eligible, as well as Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Go with the book.
Just to scare some people and possibly show my age, there was also a Saturday morning cartoon version from the early seventies or late sixties. Didn’t look at the IMDB to check. Really catchy theme song, much of which I can still remember.
Palin’s 80 Days is a classic. And it’s not a rermake of the actual story, just him accepting a bet that he can do it. You’d think that. with travel technologies advancing as much as they have sinve Verne’s day, it would be a simple thing to do. HAH! He still almost doesn’t make it (obviously, part of the bet ist hat he can’t use modern air travel. (The balloon trip is jus a side trip, and one that doesn’t advance him in his travels at all.)
This link may interest you: http://www.empireonline.co.uk/news/news.asp?story=3983&ss=80+days&cp=1
Regarding a remake of the film starring Steve Coogan & Jacki Chan . . .
After reading Around The World in 80 Days, you may want to check out The Other Log Of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer. Written long after Verne’s book, this is an entertaining science fiction story about what really happened during Fogg’s trip around the world - for which Verne’s book was just a cover story. 
I read somewhere recently that the Jackie Chan remake has been delayed due to corporate insecurity about international events. Looking for more info.
I seem to remember a female American reporter trying to duplicate Fogg’s 80 day trip
in the late 1880s.
That would be Nellie Bly.
“Perhaps the peak of Bly’s fame came when she took a whirlwind trip around the world in 1889 to beat Phileas Fogg, the fictional hero of Jules Verne’s “Around the World in Eighty Days.” Traveling by ship, train and burro, she returned back to New York in 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes as a celebrity, cheered by crowds of men as well as women.” from the PBS American Experience documentary Around the World in 72 Days
Nasty point. The end of the book/movie is absurd.
Yes, Philias Fogg sees one more sunset than the people with whim he made the bet. I refuse to believe that 1. the concept that it takes you less time to sail from Japan to San Francisco than will be shown on you watch wasnt known and 2. that at no point in Fogg’s journey across the United States does anyone give him a copy of today’s newspaper.
I remember that, too! The theme song was to the tune of “Mademoiselle From Armentieres” and went something like:
<i>Around the world in 80 days with
Passepartout
So Fogg can marry Belinda Maze
Passepartout</i> etc.
I think it ran in the early to mid 70s, but I’m not sure.
I remember a version that had Cantinflas as the servant… is that the one you are referring?
I don’t think they are. They said it was a cartoon.
Cantinflas played Passepartout in the only version I’ve seen (the famous one in which David Niven played Fogg).