Reeling Backward: "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956)

Poor "Around the World in 80 Days." If it wasn't so burdened by that mantle of having won a Best Picture Academy Award, I think people would regard it much more fondly. Instead they'd see a fun, light piece of extravagant entertainment -- pure spectacle for its own sake.

When "World" does get mentioned these days, it's usually not too far from the words "worst Best Picture winner ever" or something to that effect. And indeed, while watching the picture I was rarely able to push that distinction out of my mind. It's a thoroughly engaging, fun movie with massive production values and featuring a host of movie stars in cameo roles -- many of them blink-and-you'll-miss-it fast, such as the piano player in an Old West saloon turning around to reveal Frank Sinatra's wordless profile.

But Best Picture? There's simply nothing about "World" that announces itself as Best Picture material. Its other competitors from 1956 were "The King and I," "The Ten Commandments," "Giant" and "Friendly Persuasion" -- not exactly an outstanding cinematic year, by most reckonings. Perhaps only 1952 beats it out for the weakest Academy Awards field ever, when "The Greatest Show on Earth" took the top prize.

"World" also won Oscars for cinematography and editing (both deserved) as well as screenplay and musical score. It was based on the Jules Verne book, with many changes and embellishments -- e.g., the sequence of the two men riding over the Alps in an air balloon, perhaps the most iconic image from the movie, is a total fabrication.

It tells the tale of straitlaced British adventurer Phileas Fogg, played by David Niven, who accepts a challenge from fellow members of the snooty Reform Club to travel around the world in 80 days, with 20,000 pounds wagered. In 1872, this is considered an astonishing feat. But Fogg, a stand-in for the futurist Verne himself, muses that it will be accomplished in 80 hours eventually.

Just a few days earlier, some bold criminal stole a fortune from the Bank of England, with Fogg the prime suspect. Certainly the way he throws money around on his trip -- purchasing and then discarding the balloon, an elephant and even a steamship -- suggests something nefarious. He spends far more than he could hope to win from his wager.

Thus Fix (Robert Newton in his final role), a police inspector, shadows Fogg most of the trip, perpetually waiting on a warrant to arrive in the right place so he can apprehend his supposed culprit. Of course, he could just hold him for questioning until the warrant arrives, but then we wouldn't have a movie.

Also coming along for half the trip is Shirley MacLaine as Indian (!) Princess Aouda, whom Fogg rescues from a ritual sacrifice ceremony. Aouda says and does astonishingly little for most of the trip, finally casting some doe eyes at Fogg near the end and, in what must have been shockingly funny in 1956, asking him to marry her. The porcelain-skinned MacLaine, slightly decorated with dusky makeup, is most unconvincing as a native denizen of the Near East.

Also along for the trip is Passepartout, Fogg's valet whom he just hired earlier the same day he sets off on his excursion. A former circus gymnast and jack-of-all-trades, Passepartout has an array of skills that come in handy throughout the trip, including playing at bullfighter for a reluctant benefactor. Fogg has run through his serving men at an astonishing pace because of their failure to meet his persnickety standards, but Passepartout is the unlikely one who measures up.

A mild-mannered ladies' man with patched trousers, mustachio tips and a bowler hat reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Passepartout is played by Mexican superstar Cantinflas, considered by man (including Chaplin) the greatest international clown of his era. Hollywood had been begging Cantinflas to make a movie with them for years, and he had always refused until "World," when he was in his mid-40s. He would make only a few more American pictures before returning to Mexican cinema.

Passepartout actually dominates the story for a good chunk of the narrative, playing the comedic protagonist while Fogg operates as the straight man. In fact, Niven received top billing only in English-speaking countries, while Cantinflas was billed as the lead everywhere else in the globe. (The casting would follow a similar theme for the film's underwhelming 2004 remake, with Jackie Chan as Passepartout and the relatively unknown Steve Coogan as Fogg.)

My favorite part was when Fogg is making the final leg of his journey across the Atlantic and the steamship runs out of coal. Niven buys the ship from the captain, and proceeds to have the crew tear apart every inch of the vessel that is flammable and toss it into the boiler. By the end they're riding on a floating barge with an engine room and a pair of wheel paddles, and not much else.

Directed by Michael Anderson with a screenplay adaptation by James Poe, John Farrow and S.J. Perelman, "Around the World in 80 Days" is light, carefree entertainment, filled with plenty of laughs and fun. All the cameos by stars end up seeming rather pointless, but there's no denying it's an engaging flick, even at a hair over three hours long.

Watching it got me to thinking about this year's Best Picture race. "Argo" had been considered an early front-runner for that award, but a growing backlash seemed to conclude that it was too unserious to be named Best Picture. Or, more accurately, that its story theme did not have the prerequisite "heaviness" to earn that distinction.

"Argo" is indeed a dramatic film, but it has plenty of moments of levity, with Alan Arkin's character as the nexus for the frivolity. The overall tone is of a crime caper -- a deadly serious one to be sure, but one in which we know the good guys get out of Iran safely.

"Lincoln" and "Zero Dark Thirty" are both more classic versions of a Best Picture pedigree -- historical dramas based on real figures, with a heavy spritz of Hollywood fact-fudging.

It's instructive that comedies have earned so few Best Picture nominations, let alone wins. "Annie Hall" and "Shakespeare in Love" are the only two to take the Academy Award in the past half-century, and both have plenty of serious moments that render them more of a dramatic-comedy blend.

In that sense I suppose we should be more appreciative of "Around the World in 80 Days," since it represented a genre that has not gotten its due respect from the Academy.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Hondo" 1953)

"Hondo" isn't one of John Wayne's best Westerns, but it diverges in a few notable ways from the rest of his six-shooter work. In 1953 Wayne had the sort of clout that he could hand-pick his projects and directors, and this film was made through his own production company.

"Hondo" underwent a frame-by-frame restoration a few years ago, and is being released on Blu-ray tomorrow, June 5, in its first-ever widescreen presentation on video. Click the link below to find out more -- it also comes with a nice collection of extras.

Wayne & Co. found a short story by a then largely unknown Western writer, Louis L'Amour, and turned it into a screenplay stamped with Wayne's signature laconic style. James Edward Grant, a Wayne favorite, handled the script, a lean, atmospheric exercise coming in at a mere 84 minutes.

They used 3-D technology to film it, with some difficulty, and the film did relatively well at the box office. Interestingly, L'Amour penned a novelization of the movie that became a best seller, and did much to boost his career writing novels. Certainly, Hollywood took notice of him, with dozens of subsequent adaptations of his work.

But the most consequential thing about "Hondo" to me is that it's essentially a romantic drama that wears the dusty, fringed clothes of a Western. There are plenty of gunfights and chases -- using the all-too-popular 3-D technique of having stuff fly at the camera. But the heart of the story is about love and loyalty.

Geraldine Page, a bona fide Broadway star who used this movie to segue into a very successful film career, plays a prairie wife who falls in love with Honda Lane, a prototypical Wayne protagonist in many respects -- a hard, lonely man of action who lives by his own stubbornly independent credo.

Hondo's intro is pure Wayne myth-making. He stumbles in out of the desert, parched and horseless, bearing only a Winchester rifle, pistol, ammo belt and scruffy mongrel named Sam in tow. Sam is his companion but not his servant, and does what he likes, which is how  Hondo prefers it. His motto is to let other people do what they want to do, even if he knows it to be foolish or wrong, as this is the same courtesy he expects others to extend to himself.

Mrs. Lowe -- her name is credited as Angie, though I don't believe we ever hear her called that -- is a stubborn ranch wife, overseeing her rambunctious 6-year-old Johnny (Lee Aker). She repeatedly insists to Hondo that her husband is rounding up cattle and shortly to return, but they both know this to be a lie.

This have a confrontation where they make their feelings for each other plain. It includes Lowe making the extraordinary statement (for a Hollywood film in 1953) that she knows she's a homely woman. Hondo does not refuse this point, only stating that her inner qualities of steadfastness make her more appealing than any superficial traits.

Page is not of course anything in the same galaxy as homely, but director John Farrow (who won an Oscar for his screenplay of "Around the World in 80 Days") deliberately shoots her in a way to play up a dowdy sort of plainness.

Page, an early devotee of Method acting, does a yeoman's job with her part, which as written isn't terribly sophisticated. Her reactions and off-kilter line readings give her performance a showy sort of distinctiveness. It isn't a particularly authentic portrayal of  a 19th century ranch wife, but it does stand out from the drab sort womenfolk that generally populate these sorts of movies. Page received the first of eight Academy Award nominations for her turn.

(I should also note that L'Amour also received a nomination for best motion picture story, but L'Amour and the film's producers asked that it be withdrawn since it was based on a story that first appeared in a magazine, and the Academy complied. I'm not sure if there's any other occurrence like that in Oscar history.)

Frequent Wayne sidekick Ward Bond is around, playing a cantankerous ally named Buffalo Baker. James Arness, the future "Gunsmoke" star, has a small role as a Hondo antagonist who later saves his life, and is given Hondo's prize rifle as a reward. They have a brief fistfight, which is noteworthy for the fact that the looming 6-foot-7-inch Arness was one of the few actors who could make the 6'4" Wayne seem less intimidating.

"Hondo" has also been praised for a relatively progressive view of American Indians. Vittorio, the Apache chief (played by an Australian, Michael Pate, alas), is certainly fierce and bloodthirsty. But he has good cause -- Hondo himself notes that it's the whites who broke the treaty, not the Indians. Vittorio tells Mrs. Lowe that all his sons were killed by white raiders, yet he spares her and Johnny because he deems the young boy a brave little warrior for defending his mother from them.

Hondo himself is part Indian, living among the Apache for five years, took a squaw, and openly admires their ideals -- especially their hatred of lying. In the film's last moments, after the Apache have been driven off from their attack on settlers and the cavalry, Hondo notes that it's an end of a way of life, and a good one at that.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Five Came Back" (1939)

When it came out in 1939, "Five Came Back" was seen as a low-budget adventure flick about a group whose plane crash-lands in the Amazonian jungle. It was just another B movie from RKO, a studio famous for churning them out.

But in many ways, the film can be seen as a precursor to the modern disaster flicks that had their heyday in the 1970s, and then another one in the '90s.

The main hallmark of the genre is there: A large, disparate cast of people from different walks of life who are brought together by their dire fate. Some of them grow closer, some ennoble themselves through their struggle, while others are tested and found wanting.

There's no big-budget spectacle, but director John Farrow does what he can with a lot of model airplanes and shaking sets. One scene that is fairly horrifying is when the plane steward is sucked out the door.

I was fairly amused by the accommodations on the plane. Despite being a tiny craft, each passenger has their own mini-compartment complete with a fold-out bed and privacy curtain. Lately some high-end airlines have introduced private cubicles, at an extraordinary premium, to lure elite travelers. Back in 1939, this was considered standard seating arrangements.

One has to wonder about the expectations audiences had for a movie titled "Five Came Back." Since a dozen people were on the plane when it took off, we can figure out on our own that more than half the passengers and crew will buy it.

The big dilemma, and the movie's hook -- Dalton Trumbo was among a quartet of writers -- comes when they repair the plane and make to take off before the tribe of local cannibals arrive. The pilot informs them that the plane can only take the weight of five people. (Some math whiz, that pilot.)

Still, it'd be interesting to see other films try to get away with the same trick for their titles. Imagine if "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was instead called "The Bridge is Blown Up, the Train Crashes and Most Everybody Dies."

"Five Came Back" features a few recognizable actors. There's a young Lucille Ball as Peggy, a woman of ill repute. John Carradine, the beanpole character actor, plays Mr. Crimp, a detective hired to transport an anarchist back to Panama City for trial and hanging. Mr. Crimp's not a particularly attentive guard: The prisoner, Vasquez (Joseph Calleia), steals his gun and nearly escapes before he's even turned over to his charge.

There's a rich young man eloping with his secretary, who catches the eye of Joe, the co-pilot. We also have an elderly professor (C. Aubrey Smith) and his fussbudget wife, a mob tough guarding the son of his boss, and Bill (Chester Morris), the stiff-necked but no-nonsense captain.

Most of the gang holds it together pretty well as the weeks go by. It's notable that the lawman, Crimp, is depicted as the most selfish character, while the two criminals, Vasquez and the mafia triggerman, sacrifice themselves for the common good. The old professor rediscovers romance with his wife, and the secretary learns her rich fiance isn't such a catch after all.

A couple of the men are seen with five o'clock shadow now and then, but it's almost laughable how everyone's hair and clothes remain neat as a button despite living in the jungle -- they must've had a large stash of Brylcreem onboard. And I got quite a chuckle out of the women traipsing around the bush in their high heels.

"Five Came Back" was remade a couple of times in the 1950s, but the film it most reminded me of was 1965's "Flight of the Phoenix," about a group of soldiers who crash in the desert and have to scavenge together a makeshift plane out of the wreckage of their old one.

Again, the mark of the disaster flick is not the particular circumstances, but the motley collection of characters each affected by the disaster in their own way. "Five Came Back" may have been a low-budget quickie, but it set the pattern for decades of movies to come.

3 stars out of four