Around the World in 80 Days

The great cinema extravaganza of its day - based on Jules Verne’s novel of the same name - Around the world in 80 Days won no fewer than five Oscars: for best motion picture, best screenplay, best cinematography, best editing and best music in its class. For the composer Victor Young, who had been nominated more than twenty times before without actually getting an Oscarf, it was a long-deserved triumph. Sadly, he died shortly before the award ceremony. However, what is still remembered of the film after nearly fifty years is the image of David Niven and Cantiflas, as Phileas Fogg and his companion Passepartout, flying a hot-air balloon to the accompaniment of the floating waltz tune that typifies so well the Victorian setting of the story and the debonair attitude of its hero.