Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

“What kind of foreigner are you? Are you a hoochie-coochie dancer?” – Col. Proctor Stamp

Number of Times Seen –  2 (2 Sep 2000 and 14 Oct 2013)

Brief Synopsis – The famous Jules Verne novel is brought to life on screen as Phineas Fogg attempts to win a bet and travel around the globe in less than 80 days

My Take on it – I am a HUGE fan of The Amazing Race TV show and this movie reminds me of it.  Perhaps it can be called the “original Amazing Race”.

Fogg travels from England to France, Spain, India, Japan, The USA and back to England accomplishing tasks at each of those places and doesn’t even need to “check in” with Phil after each destination.

This movie is truly one of the first ones done in such an epic proportion. The amount of extras and sets are just astounding and it truly was a step in a new direction for film at the time.

The problem is the story is too choppy because they are limited in the amount of time allowed at each destination.  I’m not sure if I ever read the book and I wonder if the story was more complete there. This movie is a very long 2:45 minutes, but due to its storyline, It should have been much longer which would have made it even better than it already is.

This movie is known for being the “inventee” of movie cameos.  Beforehand it was uncommon for famous people to just “show up” for a few seconds or minutes in a film without getting billing for it.

This movie has an amazing number of cameos due to it’s story line taking place in numerous locations for short periods of time.

Winner of 5 (of 8) Oscars – Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing and Music.

It lost Director, Art Direction and Costume Design

Bottom Line – Epicly done, but there is a bit missing in the story itself, seems too choppy since they try to cram too much into a shortish running time of 2:45 minutes.

Rating – Globe Worthy