Fairy Tale Spotlight: Gulliver's Travels (1939 Film)

I've been saying this for a while now. I consider Max Fleischer to be one of the absolute greatest pioneers in animation in our history. At times, I want to rank him higher than Disney. At times. The movie Gulliver's Travels is one of his finest, and if you haven't seen it, you should. It is fairy tale gold.

Of course, the movie is based on the book by Johnathan Swift. It is a story I never really got around to reading. I can't really make any comparisons in this blog. What I can do is just let you know what this movie achieved.

I actually watched this movie a lot growing on on a Beta Max tape. I am pretty sure it was in black and white though. The film was apparently released in Technicolor, so I think I just remembered it wrong. I recently reconnected with it on Amazon Prime Video which lets you watch it 100% free. (At the time this blog is coming out anyways.)

It follows the adventures of Gulliver, a sailor, who gets shipwrecked in a land full of little people. I don't really want to talk too much about the plot. Just know that it is very good and fun throughout the film. The thing that was more amazing to me was the presentation.

This film came out in 1939. Max Fleischer had already been experimenting with animation quite a bit by this point in time. But this movie tried a lot of different techniques that blended in a strange way. Not bad at all, mind you.

The little people of Lilliput and Blefuscu are all very cartoony and silly looking. Big noses, huge eyes, silly hats. The entire country is full of clownish types. The exception are the prince and princess of their respective countries. They are hyper realistic human beings. They are also far more serious than their cartoony fellows. This was likely by design. Their story was far more serious than the one happening to everyone else... so the artists rendered them serious.

Gulliver himself is also realistic but extremely and flawlessly rotoscoped into this movie. So well did they capture a real actor frame by frame that he almost looks like a real giant standing among little goofy looking cartoon people. The contrast is stunning. There was this one part where he pulls on a boot and then stomps. There is a loud thud and the screen shakes. It was a brilliantly executed effect. It momentarily made me feel small. Finding immersion like this in old movies is rare.

The castle at Blefuscu was pretty to look at too. It was surrounded by water which actually just looked like real water. It very well could have been a film of real water blended into a drawing. I'm not actually sure how they did it. It was well done.

There was another frightening moment where the little people accidentally discharge Gulliver's giant pistol and rather violently take out one of their lookout towers. It was a well done effect and did well to point out how dangerous a giant's pistol would be to them. It became a major plot point later on in the film as well.

Probably the most notable character in the movie was Gabby. He was the Town crier of Lilliput. He isn't actually from the book, but he was one of the most hilarious persons in the movie. He was a grumpy character who nobody ever took seriously or even listened to half the time. And if I could be honest... he did not deserve that.

Gabby had a big ego and claimed to be a great adventurer before he became a boring ol' town crier, and as the movie moved forward, I started to believe him. Of all the characters in the movie, Gabby was the only one who took anything seriously. He was the one everyone followed when things got real. He was smart and bold. There were moments where he seemed cowardly, but they did not seem to define him as a person. His actions throughout the film painted him more as a hero character than a goofy pointless one.

Interesting enough, it was only Gabby who got a spin-off series after the movie's success. I've seen some of them and they are very funny. He is a very enjoyable character and not to be taken lightly.

Gulliver's Travels is available on Amazon Prime Video for free. It is about an hour and fifteen minutes in length, Well worth your time.

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