improved as it was dismantled as though to feed it into its own furnaces as the plot required). One of the most famous sequences in the film, the flight by hydrogen balloon, is not in the original Jules Verne novel. Because the film was made in Todd AO, the sequence was expressly created to show off the locations seen on the flight, as projected on the giant curved screen used for the process. A similar balloon flight can be found in an earlier Jules Verne novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, in which the protagonists explore Africa from a hydrogen balloon. Many of the balloon scenes with Niven and Cantinflas were filmed using a crane. Even that height bothered Niven, who was afraid of heights. Tom Burges, who was shorter than Niven, was used as a stand-in for scenes where the balloon is seen from a distance. Many of the lots used in the film are now on the land occupied by Century City, an office complex in the Los Angeles area. In his memoirs, Niven related that Todd completed filming while in considerable debt. The post-production work on the film was an exercise in holding off Todd's creditors long enough to produce a saleable film, and the footage was worked upon under the supervision of Todd's creditors and returned to a secure vault each night, as if it were in escrow. The film's release and subsequent success vindicated Todd's considerable efforts. Release The film premiered on October 17, 1956, at the Rivoli Theater in New York City and played to full houses for 15 months. It ran for 102 weeks at the theatre, with 1,564 performances, 2,173,238 patrons and a gross of $4,872,326. It topped Variety monthly box office chart for seven months during 1957. By the time of Todd's death in a private plane crash, 18 months after the film had opened, it had grossed $33 million. By November 1958, the film had earned worldwide rentals of $22 million including $4.6 million from overseas from just 280 engagements. None of the overseas engagements at that date had been in Todd-AO. In Spanish and Latin American posters and programs of the movie, Cantinflas is billed above the other players because he was very popular in Spanish-speaking countries. There were two souvenir programmes sold in theatres. For Roadshow screenings Todd-AO is mentioned, though for general release those pages are not