Journal of Film Preservation N° 56 - FIAF

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80 Days: Discoveries from a unique collection Historical Column / Chronique historique Brian Taves The organizing and cataloging of a valuable collection at the Library of Congress has led to new discoveries about the filming of the definitive version of Jules Verne’s classic 1873 novel, Le Tour du monde en quatrevingt jours: Michael Todd’s adventure-comedy spectacular, Around the World in 80 Days, first released in 1956. Around the World in 80 Days was the culmination of showman Michael Todd’s life; he died at age 50 in an airplane crash March 22, 1958, just as his film was breaking box-office records and winning awards from all over the globe. Todd’s widow was the actress Elizabeth Taylor. Nearly a quarter-century after Todd’s death, while Taylor was married to John Warner, a United States Senator from Virginia, she donated the film footage that she had inherited from Todd to the Library of Congress. This was an appropriate decision, since the Library has one of the world’s largest collections relating to Jules Verne, and certainly the most extensive holdings of Verne film and television adaptations of any archive in the world. The Verne films at the Library of Congress are highlighted by such rarities as the 1914 version of Michael Strogoff, the first feature-length film adaptation of a Verne story, and the recent restoration of With Williamson beneath the Sea, the 1932 filmed autobiography of the pioneer of undersea photography who codirected Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1916) and The Mysterious Island (1929) (see ‘Journal of Film Preservation’, 52 [April 1996], 52-61). The collection of Around the World in 80 Days footage consists of 426 reels of picture and sound track material, in several languages, in 16 mm., 35 mm., and 70 mm. The footage varies from preliminary rough cut “workprints” to production elements, preprints, color separations, tests, shots of the premieres, and “behind-the-scenes” footage. The footage includes portions of the original 1957 German, Italian, and French versions of Around the World in 80 Days, with the entire original French soundtrack. Other original soundtrack material is broken down into various components, such as music, sound effects, and dialogue. Among the movie’s special treats were the amusing concluding credits animated by Saul Bass and the superlative, soaring score by Victor Young, perhaps the best he ever wrote, and the collection includes preprint material on both the Bass and Young contributions. Collections of this type, especially on a Hollywood feature, are unusual in film archives, which generally hold only a standard theatrical release print of a movie. As an independent production, released through United Artists, there was no studio to properly care for the Around the World in 80 Days footage. All of the material was stored in a warehouse during the years after Todd’s death, and came to the Library of Congress 18 Journal of Film Preservation / 56 / 1998
in 1982 in many poorly identified or completely unmarked cans. At the time, no one on the staff of the Library’s Motion Picture/Broadcasting/Recorded Sound Division had sufficient expertise to sort, inventory, and identify the Around the World in 80 Days footage, and most of it was placed in storage. However, later the Library was able to take advantage of the special expertise of a member of the staff, Brian Taves, who had just coauthored ‘The Jules Verne Encyclopedia’ and is also writing a book on all 300 adaptations of Verne to movies and television worldwide. Michael Todd had been interested in Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours since he briefly sponsored Orson Welles’s 1946 theatrical production, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Although Todd’s previous experience was in the stage, he realized that, in the mid-1950s, with audiences craving widescreen spectacles, Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours was ideal for an epic treatment encompassing nearly all the story’s principal incidents in a three-hour running time. In mid-1954, Todd bought rights to film the novel that had been held for two decades by British producer Alexander Korda. At various times since the 1930s, Korda announced a production with Maurice Chevalier starring as Passepartout, then planned to work with on a film with Welles. Korda shot a portion of an animated feature version, Indian Fantasy (1939), preserved by the National Film Archive. Todd was also looking for a vehicle appropriate for his new film process, Todd-A0, developed in cooperation with the American Optical Labs. This was the era when new techniques, such as 3-D and Cinemascope, were hailed as a way for movies to offer an experience with which television could not compete. One of the disadvantages of Cinemascope, used by Walt Disney to film 20,000 Leagues under the Sea in 1954, was that in using an anamorphic lens to squeeze a widescreen image onto standard 35 mm. stock, there was distortion at the edges of the frame, particularly noticeable in a panning shot. Todd-AO sought to supplant the anamorphic technique by creating, instead, an image photographed and projected on a larger, wider filmstock, doubling the 35 mm. width to 70 mm. The new 70 mm. process posed extraordinary technical challenges, especially for a neophyte film producer. Tests in the Taylor collection reveal that the question of how 70 mm. would photograph such necessities as miniature ship exteriors was an early concern. After a year of preparation, principal photography began in September 1955 and was completed at the end of the year, although various effects work and other shooting continued until April 1956 (as indicated in cards in the collection that document each day’s filming among several units). As director Michael Anderson recalled to Brian Taves, shooting in 70 mm. was essentially blind, because it was impossible to see “dailies” on a regular basis, to view what had been shot the previous day and judge the work. Nor could there be any process shots with 70 mm., filling in the background of scenes. Anderson noted to Taves, “If you wanted to shoot the Indians attacking the train you had to have a real train, take the sides off, mount a camera platform, get the train up to speed, then get the 19 Journal of Film Preservation / 56 / 1998 80 Days : Découvertes d’une collection unique. Around the World in 80 Days, sorti en 1956, a été le point culminant de la vie du showman Michael Todd. Celui-ci disparut à l’âge de 50 ans dans un accident d’avion en 1958, au moment même où son film pulvérisait tous les records du box-office et raflait de nombreux prix autour du globe. La veuve de Todd, Madame Elisabeth Taylor, presque 25 ans après, fit don du matériel qu’elle avait hérité de feu son mari à la Library of Congress. Ce fut un reflexe heureux, car la LC - qui par ailleurs conserve l’une des plus importantes collections des adaptations de Jules Verne au cinéma et à la télévision - était la mieux préparée pour recevoir et préserver ce matériel. Le fonds Taylor comprend une grande variété d’éléments tels que 426 bobines d’image et de son, en plusieurs langues, en 16mm, 35mm et 70mm. Le matériel film comprend des rushes et copies de travail, des séparations de couleurs, tests, prises de vues des premières, tournages de plateau, et bien d’autres curiosités. Il constitue une source de documentation d’une valeur inestimable pour l’étude de la superproduction hollywoodienne de Michael Todd.
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Journal of Film Preservation N° 56 - FIAF

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