Actually we'd seen the Jackie Chan version and loved it. It made sense to view the original film from the 50s.
Specs:
Nearly 3 hours, color; available on dvd
Our family's average rating:
7.63
More about the film and our reaction to it:
As I sit here writing this, the rest of my family is watching the Jackie Chan version (again). They wanted to compare the two. While both are star-studded with cameos and give a wonderful feel of world travel and adventure and contain roughly equivalent overall entertainment value, one thing's for sure: Chan's version is much more hilarious... and juvenile.
We all really liked them both. But the 1956 one, is much more like a grand adventure story, that is also funny, than the rip roaring silliness of the more recent one. The 1956 film takes on the story with a bit more intention and seriousness. Though still light and fun, it feels like "real" cinema. In fact, it feels very much like cinema for grown-ups: an impressive and lengthy production with incredible world travel and sweeping production values.
Shot on location all around the globe, the film usually inspires gushing about the wide screen format employed -- which seems to be the technological equivalent of The Hobbit's recent foray into superfast frames per second -- that is, on a nerdo-scale of excitability. But, since all the movies we watch just basically just fill up my tv set, the insanely-wide screen dimension had little effect on us. What we did love was the feeling of a book brought to life with great lushness and attention to detail.
The kids were thrilled and we were all surprise to see Buster Keaton pop up in a cameo as a train conductor. He was, as always, fabulous. There were so many celebrity cameos, its hard to know which to point out. Some of the more impressive (to me), besides Keaton, were Marlene Dietrich, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, and Peter Lorre, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
This was great fun - but families should be warned it is long and probably not the best choice for those who are new to classic cinema.
Iconic image:
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