Around The World In 80 Days (1956) review

Forget the awful 2004 version of Around the World in 80 Days and entertain the entire family with this Oscar-winning (it won five, including Best Picture) romp around the world, as based on Jules Verne’s novel.

A dapper David Niven stars as Victorian Englishman Phileas Fogg, who bets that with those newfangled steamships and railways he will be able to travel around the world in eighty days, accompanied by his valet Passepartout (Mexican actor/singer Cantinflas, who does his own bullfighting in the film).
Fun from beginning to end, the film is packed with exotic locations, flashy costumes (over 30,000 of them) and a cast of thousands, including cameos from John Gielgud, Noel Coward, Marlene Dietrich, Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine (looking like she has been dipped in gravy for her turn as an Indian princess), Peter Lorre, George Raft and John Mills.

Kids, of course, won’t recognise any of them, but they’ll be too enchanted by this Technicolor adventure of balloons, boats and trains to notice.