Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

It just so happens that, while the tone and circumstances of this film are fairly different, it does share some similarities with It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  Both are comedies centered around people desperate to get somewhere – and willing to travel by any means necessary – with a lot of money at stake.  But while the folks in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World resort to a lot of slapstick undercutting to cover a comparatively short distance, the central character in Around the World in 80 Days goes much further with a lot more pinache.  (Side note:  both are also sprawling films with lots of celebrity cameos, although Buster’s part here isn’t nearly as small.)

In Victorian England, Phileas Fogg bets several gentlemen at his club £20,000 that he can circumnavigate the globe in – you guessed it – eighty days.  Armed with his everpresent watch, plenty of cash to grease the necessary palms to get his way, and a fastidious schedule, Fogg and his trusty manservant Passepartout set off across the world, encountering plenty of obstacles and getting into some surprising adventures along the way.

It’s an enjoyable fillm – long, but amusing.  David Niven as Fogg and Cantinflas as Passepartout have great comic chemistry together and lead the film quite capably.  As I said, there are also numerous celebrity cameos from the likes of Noël Coward, Marlene Dietrich, John and Hermione Gilguld (the latter of which played Mme. Armfeldt in A Little Night Music,) Glynis Johns (Desiree in A Little Night Music!), Frank Sinatra, and Red Skelton.

I should point out that a movie from the ‘50s set in the Victorian era handles other cultures about as well as you’d expect.  Stereotypes abound, as do numerous instances of white actors playing characters of color.  Let’s put it this way:  Shirley MacLaine, the female lead, plays an Indian princess.  If there’s a silver lining to this aspect of the story, it’s that it’s at least partly making fun of Fogg’s overinflated view of English superiority.  Also, not for nothing, he regards white Americans as just as “savage” as the people of the other countries he passes through.

It’s in the American section that Buster gets in on the action, rather fittingly playing a train conductor.  Tying in with Fogg’s impression of America as a barbarous, uncivilized wilderness, he’s constantly irritated by the constant delays on the train he rides across the country:  stops for cows, farmers, buffalo, Native Americans, etc.  The assorted “train fail” humor, combined with Buster’s presence, naturally reminds of his fantastic train gags in films like Our Hospitality and The General – there’s even a scene where there’s the danger of a bridge possibly collapsing under the train!  While Buster doesn’t get a whole lot to do, that connection still makes me smile to see him playing the conductor, and he does get in on some funny scenes, my favorite being his reaction to two passengers dueling in one of the cars.

Warnings

Violence, drinking/smoking, thematic elements, and racial insensitivity.