Gulliver's Travels (1939)
Disney had a good lock on the animated feature film market in the U.S. during the mid-20th century. I don't mean that judging by their box office receipts; I mean that they were the only company making animated features in the U.S. for most of that period. Prior to the 1950s, only one other studio in the U.S. even attempted to compete in this market for a brief time: Fleischer Studios, otherwise known as the team behind the Popeye cartoons, the Betty Boop cartoons, and Out of the Inkwell. Today I'll be reviewing the first of their two feature film efforts, Gulliver's Travels.
Gulliver's Travels takes part in Lilliput, an island of tiny people. King Little (Jack Mercer) and King Bombo (Tedd Pierce) sign a wedding contract for the marriage of their children, but call it off and go to war after failing to agree on the wedding song. Meanwhile, Gulliver (Sam Parker), has landed on the beach and the Lilliputians initially fear him due to his large size. After scaring off the army of Blefuscu, the inhabitants of Lilliput accept Gulliver into their society. Gulliver, who's fascinated by these tiny nations, must then find a way to convince the two sides to reach peace with each other.
Having read a little bit of the original Gulliver's Travels book, I can safely assure you that this is not an accurate representation of the book. For one thing, it only deals with Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput. Even then, it lacks many of the satirical elements and messages that are prominent throughout the book. I really don't mind it since I'm not a huge fan of the original book, but I think it's worth noting that diehard fans of the original book probably won't like this.
In my opinion, it's a good, not great, animated film. It is pretty obvious from watching that they were trying as hard as possible to replicate the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with this. The dramatic characters looking more human than the comical ones; the romance between a prince and a princess; a comical focus on a character voiced by Pinto Colvig. It does feel like they're trying to incorporate many of Snow White's elements in order to make a successful feature. It certainly is hard to believe that this was the same studio that also made the Popeye cartoons. But for an obvious attempt to cash in on Disney's success, it still does manage to be a pleasant, wholesome tale.
For one thing, I feel that the more "human" characters in this are a bit better than the ones in Snow White. Gulliver himself sort of serves as the outsider, so we don't get to know a lot about his personality, but he's obviously kindhearted and fascinated by the world around him. I especially like the scene where he has two of his fingers dance with King Little. As the outsider in this story, it does make sense that we wouldn't know that much about him personally, so he serves his purpose pretty well. Prince David and Princess Glory aren't super interesting, but they do feel like they serve an important purpose to the story and Prince David especially has an important role in the end by taking action when necessary, which I thought was actually a good way to incorporate him, certainly better than how the prince from Snow White was incorporated into that story. The only thing that really bothers me about them is that their singing voices are noticeably different than their speaking voices, the latter of which were provided by their live action role models. The prince, princess, and Gulliver were all animated through the use of rotoscoping, a process developed by Max Fleischer that involved animators tracing over live-action footage in order to create a more realistic effect. For the most part, it does work, with the exception of Gulliver's brief song. It's a good song and also an interesting scene because we actually get to see Gulliver on his own for once, but the animation looks especially odd on him there. I don't know, it seems almost as though it's not finished properly in that scene. The lighting's darker, so maybe that had something to do with it?
The other characters basically serve as the film's equivalent of the Seven Dwarfs, and they do manage to have some funny moments, particularly whenever King Bombo's spies are on screen. Gabby seems to be the one they're pushing the most for (he ended up briefly headlining his own cartoon series), and he can be funny too, although it mostly relies on the fact that he's annoying and gets pushed around a lot as a result of it.
I also really like the fighting sequences between the people of Lilliput and Belfuscu; those managed to be both amusing and exciting. There are some issues, though, most notably the scene where they're tying up Gulliver. It's funny at first, but it goes on for an insanely long amount of time, time that could have been devoted to developing other sequences.
Gulliver's Travels is a charming animated film that may not necessarily be perfect but does also manage to tell an interesting story from start to finish. It may not be the best representation of the original book, but, hey, anything's better than the Jack Black version (shudders).
8 out of 10
Gulliver's Travels takes part in Lilliput, an island of tiny people. King Little (Jack Mercer) and King Bombo (Tedd Pierce) sign a wedding contract for the marriage of their children, but call it off and go to war after failing to agree on the wedding song. Meanwhile, Gulliver (Sam Parker), has landed on the beach and the Lilliputians initially fear him due to his large size. After scaring off the army of Blefuscu, the inhabitants of Lilliput accept Gulliver into their society. Gulliver, who's fascinated by these tiny nations, must then find a way to convince the two sides to reach peace with each other.
Having read a little bit of the original Gulliver's Travels book, I can safely assure you that this is not an accurate representation of the book. For one thing, it only deals with Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput. Even then, it lacks many of the satirical elements and messages that are prominent throughout the book. I really don't mind it since I'm not a huge fan of the original book, but I think it's worth noting that diehard fans of the original book probably won't like this.
In my opinion, it's a good, not great, animated film. It is pretty obvious from watching that they were trying as hard as possible to replicate the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with this. The dramatic characters looking more human than the comical ones; the romance between a prince and a princess; a comical focus on a character voiced by Pinto Colvig. It does feel like they're trying to incorporate many of Snow White's elements in order to make a successful feature. It certainly is hard to believe that this was the same studio that also made the Popeye cartoons. But for an obvious attempt to cash in on Disney's success, it still does manage to be a pleasant, wholesome tale.
For one thing, I feel that the more "human" characters in this are a bit better than the ones in Snow White. Gulliver himself sort of serves as the outsider, so we don't get to know a lot about his personality, but he's obviously kindhearted and fascinated by the world around him. I especially like the scene where he has two of his fingers dance with King Little. As the outsider in this story, it does make sense that we wouldn't know that much about him personally, so he serves his purpose pretty well. Prince David and Princess Glory aren't super interesting, but they do feel like they serve an important purpose to the story and Prince David especially has an important role in the end by taking action when necessary, which I thought was actually a good way to incorporate him, certainly better than how the prince from Snow White was incorporated into that story. The only thing that really bothers me about them is that their singing voices are noticeably different than their speaking voices, the latter of which were provided by their live action role models. The prince, princess, and Gulliver were all animated through the use of rotoscoping, a process developed by Max Fleischer that involved animators tracing over live-action footage in order to create a more realistic effect. For the most part, it does work, with the exception of Gulliver's brief song. It's a good song and also an interesting scene because we actually get to see Gulliver on his own for once, but the animation looks especially odd on him there. I don't know, it seems almost as though it's not finished properly in that scene. The lighting's darker, so maybe that had something to do with it?
The other characters basically serve as the film's equivalent of the Seven Dwarfs, and they do manage to have some funny moments, particularly whenever King Bombo's spies are on screen. Gabby seems to be the one they're pushing the most for (he ended up briefly headlining his own cartoon series), and he can be funny too, although it mostly relies on the fact that he's annoying and gets pushed around a lot as a result of it.
I also really like the fighting sequences between the people of Lilliput and Belfuscu; those managed to be both amusing and exciting. There are some issues, though, most notably the scene where they're tying up Gulliver. It's funny at first, but it goes on for an insanely long amount of time, time that could have been devoted to developing other sequences.
Gulliver's Travels is a charming animated film that may not necessarily be perfect but does also manage to tell an interesting story from start to finish. It may not be the best representation of the original book, but, hey, anything's better than the Jack Black version (shudders).
8 out of 10
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