Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 155-156: Opening the Book

This time on the Oscar Blog two films that were based on popular novels and both that won awards for cinematography and editing as well as the second winning many more.

But we start with King Solomon's Mines, a nominee from the 1951 ceremony, which was based on the novel by H Rider Haggard. Obviously this version, which starred Raymond Massey as the explorer Allan Quatermain wasn't the first adaptation of the book or the last but was arguably the most successful due to its exterior locations which at the time would've surprised audiences. The main story sees Quatermain tasked as guide to John Goode and his sister Elizabeth Curtis played by Deborah Kerr so that they can hope to find her husband who went on a mission to discover the mines of the title. During their time the trio come across a menagerie of African wildlife, a British fugitive and are almost trapped in a cave by a dastardly African king. The end of the film sees rebel forces try and overthrow the king while the whereabouts of Elizabeth's husband are also revealed. King Solomon's Mines is quite a stilted film and indeed the directorial style of Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton is rather basic. Some of the scenes between Elizabeth and Allen feel very cold and there is no chemistry between the pair who are supposed to be your romantic coupling. Massey isn't a particularly commanding lead so it isn't surprising that he wasn't the original choice for the role while Deborah Kerr tries her best but doesn't get a lot to do other than look frightened by what's going on. Instead the real star here is location scout Eva Monley who picked some of the best African backdrops to host the film which to a 1950s audience would seem quite new and exciting as would all the African rituals and the numerous beasts that the trio run into throughout their adventures. As a postcard from Africa it does the job fairly well but I didn't find it very exciting and though it wasn't particularly long it still felt baggy and lagged in several places.

But if King Solomon's Mines was baggy I think that Around the World in 80 Days, the winner at the 1957 ceremony, must be described as incredibly overlong. The whole film clocks in at a whopping 183 minutes which includes an intermission and a lengthy and well-produced end credits sequence which in fact is one of the best things about the film. It even has a convoluted start with journalist Edward R Murrow showing footage of George Melies' A Trip to the Moon and linking it together with the stories of Jules Verne. We all know the basic story of the film which sees Phileas Fogg wager with his fellow reform club members that he cannot navigate around the globe in eighty days. He sets off on a mission with his new manservant Passepartout as they journey around the world on different forms of transport including balloons, steam liners and trains which are constantly breaking down. The film also introduces a romantic aspect as the pair rescue Shirley MacLaine's princess from being burnt alive while in India and she forms a romantic attachment to Fogg while he is also being chased around the globe by Robert Newton's Mr Fix a Scotland Yard detective who believes Fogg to have stolen from the Bank of England. That's about all the plot as the film jumps from set-piece to set-piece a lot of which feature Passepartout fooling around whether it is at a bull-fight or performing on stage he is given more spotlight than Fogg mainly because he is being portrayed by Latin American comedian Cantinflas who was one of the main draws of the film. To be fair Cantinflas is a lot more engaging than David Niven, who plays Fogg, almost acting as a sort of modern day Charlie Chaplin and he does indeed steal the film. This version of Around the World was conceived by producer Michael Todd, the third husband of Elizabeth Taylor, who fancied himself as a bit of Cecil B De Mille type and had a grand vision of what he wanted this film to look like. Indeed this film is heavy on scenery if light on plot with all the different locations being well-scouted and well-shot so I do think it deserved that cinematography Oscar. The film also has a cavalcade of cameos from Frank Sinatra playing the piano to Buster Keaton as a train conductor there were about fourty appearances of this nature so after a while this began to get a bit tiresome. Whether it deserved the Best Picture Oscar we will discover when I come to the end of the 1950s but this is a film that looks stunning and has a great slapstick performance from Cantinflas even if it is far too long and has too many unnecessary elements to it I feel that certain elements will stick in my mind long after I have watched the film something that can't be said about King Solomon's Mines. So out of these two films I would say that Around the World in 80 Days is definitely the superior of the two but I don't think that's a particularly hard battle to win.