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S. J. Perelman's script*moreover, is a deft, witty spoof of Verne's book, which in turn was a spoof of the English, so that the moviegoer often experiences the refined pleasures of laughing at a man who is laughing at somebody else. The main roles are competently carried out by David Niven, Shirley MacLaine and the late Robert Newton, and most of the big stars are effectively scattered about the picture, like sequins on an elephant. But the star of stars is the famous Mexican comic, Cantinflas. In his first U.S. movie, he gives delightful evidence that he may well be, as Charles Chaplin once said he was, "the world's greatest clown."
Except for his size, there is nothing small about brash, bouncy, blue-eyed, wisecracking Mike Todd. Confessing last week that Around the World had cost him $6,000,000, Showman Todd apologized, "I'm ashamed to admit it, it cost so little. Take The Ten Commandments. That cost $1,000,000 a commandment."
In addition to pouring cash and energy into the film. Todd demonstrated that he could put the stamp of his personality on it. It is brassy, extravagant, long-winded and funny. The Todd personality has been developed over a career dedicated to an unremitting pursuit of the elusive buck.
He was born Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen in Minneapolis, the son of an impoverished Polish rabbi, grew up in Chicago to become Mike Todd, his own special creation. He got off to a fast start at eight, playing poker and shooting dice. At twelve he was running an established but impermanent floating crap game. Since then, in one way or another, he has never stopped gambling. He asserts, probably correctly, that he is the only man ever to lose a race track on a horse race.
He began in show business by combining sex and spectacle at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. His show was called the Flame Dance. A girl dressed in gauzy wings, representing a moth, danced closer and closer to a huge candle until she caught fire and ran off apparently naked. Says Todd: "I burned up four girls before I got it." It was a hit. After that there were other hits, other flops, but almost all had either sex or spectacle or both. He did The Hot Mikado ("The only show I ever produced that I liked"), Star and Garter, his first Broadway smash hit, Cole Porter's Mexican Hayride, Catherine Was Great with Mae West, the G.I. Hamlet with Maurice Evans, and an involuntary bit in court, where he was declared bankrupt. Continuing to live lavishly, Todd said, "I was a million in the hole. What was I supposed to do, cut down on my cigars?"
Six years ago Todd helped lead the big-screen revolution when he got into the movie business in a big way with Cinerama. When he got out of Cinerama at a pleasant profit he parlayed the entire packet on a process he thought even better, Todd-AO. When he got out of Todd-AO, he put it all on Around the World, had to borrow more to make the distance. Two days before the opening, as he was struggling to raise the last $162,000 for the final payment, a syndicate offered to buy him out for $10 million plus 20% of the profits. Todd refused. "I gambled right up to the wire," he said. "I'll keep going with it."