Around the world in 80 days was one of my favourite books, as a child. So, in honour of those days, I today watched a version of this movie starring David Niven. The movie, and in retrospect, the book, should be labeled "Around the World in Sterotypes". The movie starts in a Gentleman's England where the maintenance of standard time, the drinking of tea and the exhibition of sangfroid that would put a million fictional spies to shame is all the rave.
First stop in the movie is Spain. Spain has his august highness, a moorish prince and ofcourse a bullfight. I was willing to accept this deviation since the man playing Passepartout was a real life Bull fighter of some fame called Cantiflas.
The next major stop is India- which is ofcourse replete in elephants, holy men and human sacrifice .Through the twenty minutes spent by the movie in India, I dint see anyone who was not involved in some sort of activity that involved religion or mysticism.It almost seemed that no living Indian was normal. Hong Kong made up for its lack of exotic features via ostrich drawn cabs. What ostriches were doing in HK, I really dont know.
Much comment was reserved for the United States, which is reffered to by Philleas Fogg as " a very primitive country".I had a hearty laugh when Fogg reprimands his man servant for tipping a waiter at an SF bar with the splendid line- "Do not spoil the natives."I wonder what Fogg would have to say if he realised that you have to spoil them with 15% of your money each time you go out.There was a 2 second Frank Sinatra cameo. He was playing the piano in the bar.Maybe, it was just before he approached the Corleones to sort out his problems! No movie about the wild west is quite finished without the red indians. They are at first peaceful. As the ticket collector in the train explains, "You can say that by the peace pipes they are smoking".The wild west is wild, with falling bridges, falling rocks and ofcourse more hostile indiansHowever, the tactical maneouvering of the indians is rather limited because of fenced off farm land lying next to the rails. To end it all, life in the United states is ended by the cavalry riding to the rescue. There were some skunks, which I think is an important feature of life in the United States.
When I finished the 3 hr long movie, which could have been 2 hours or less, I just wondered about what Jules Verne must have thought about each country as he wrote the original book. Much of the book's alure is the adventure of traveling through strange lands.Jules Verne was by any standards, a well read man. He would have probably cherry picked facts to make his book a blockbuster. The lands he describes arent that strange anymore. But, it brought to me an important realisation- spin doctoring is an ancient art, further- its useful in any era.
