I really didn't want to watch this movie -coming off of having just watched Hamlet, I didn't feel like watching a long movie (over 3 hours) about travel. It started out with an annoying news reel (Tyler blames Citizen Kane for spawning this idea), but then quickly improved. David Niven has a dry sense of humor as Phileas Fogg, a wealthy man that bets on a whim, during a casual conversation at his club, that he can make it around the world in 80 days. He sets out that very evening ("An Englishman never jokes about a wager, sir.), much to the surprise of his newly hired valet Passepartout (Cantinflas), who is to accompany him. The two actors have great chemistry, and are both very funny in different ways. Fogg is droll and eccentric (Sir Frances Gromarty: "One thousand pounds for an elephant? It's outrageous! You've been diddled." Fogg: "Undoubtedly. But it's not often one needs an elephant in a hurry."), while Passepartout is adventurous and whimsical (he's up for anything, whether its charging in to rescue a princess from a fiery death, riding a horse to fight hostile Indians, or enthusiastically volunteering try try hand as a matador). I didn't recognize Shirley Maclaine as the princess Fogg falls in love with-she was so young! Overall, much more entertaining than expected.
It has lots of quirky British humor. Tea in a hurricane, what what! The 2 leads are charismatic and fun to watch. It does show a lot of "touristy" things...in Spain a lot of Flamenco dancing and a very long matador scene, a lot of drawn out shots of scenery outside train windows, etc. I'm assuming this was because people couldn't travel as easily back then, so they wanted to show the audience clips of other locales and cultures. The depiction of Americans was hilarious. Do the Brits really see us that way? *"The bridge can't hold the train." "Here, drink some whiskey and take it full speed!" "[Guzzle guzzle] Okay!" Indians attack the train, and every single person is firing out their train windows with guns (including the women). The movie pokes fun at the British, too, refreshingly not worried about being PC in any way (a girl in a saloon muses to Fogg: "You still in a hurry? I thought the English were calm, dreamy sort of people."). In fact, the whole movie was refreshingly blase about political correctness.
Overall, much more entertaining than expected.
*My interpretation of the exchange -pretty close to what they really said!
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