Gulliver's Travels (1939)

     Buzz Aldrin was the second man to step foot on the moon. K2 is the second tallest mountain in the world. Many may know that already, but even more people know that Neil Armstrong was the first man to step foot on the moon and that Everest is the tallest mountain. I’d hazard to guess that the majority of Americans, if asked, know that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first animated feature film. How many would know the second animated feature film? Not many. Well, I’m here to tell you, or remind you, that it was Paramount Pictures and Producer Max Fleischer’s (already well known for the Betty Boop and Popeye animated shorts) Gulliver’s Travels in 1939. Two years after Snow White premiered.

     Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels tells the first story from Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel, his voyage to Lilliput. During an epic storm the ship Gulliver is on is wrecked and Gulliver is washed upon the shore of an unknown land. While still unconscious, he is tied down by tiny people and presented to King Little of Lilliput. Prior to the discovery of Gulliver King Little and King Bombo, of Blefuscu, had completed an agreement for the wedding of their children Princess Glory of Lilliput and Prince David of Blefuscu. The pair are very much in love and in favor of the wedding. Unfortunately, during the discussions the two kings can’t agree as to who’s national anthem will play at the wedding and declare war upon each other. When Gulliver awakens and finds himself tied down and surrounded by tiny people. He easily sits up breaking the bonds that were holding him. The diminutive people of Lilliput are terrified, but Gulliver assures them he is no threat. He quickly becomes friendly with the Lilliputians. While this is happening there are 3 spies from Blefuscu watching these events play out and send word to King Bombo of the arrival of Gulliver. They then receive orders to removed Gulliver by any means necessary. Luckily for Gulliver, one of the Lilliputians, Gabby, comes across these orders and warns King Little. When King Bombo arrives with his flotilla of little ships Gulliver convinces them that war is not the answer and that the Prince and Princess belong together. Peace is restored and the tiny people build a ship (big for them but with just enough room for Gulliver) and Gulliver sails off into the sunset.

     I’d seen this movie many times on TV as a child but hadn’t seen it since then. At least four decades. Watching today I couldn’t help but compare it with Snow White. The animation is good, sometimes beautiful, but there’s nowhere near the care and attention to detail that went into making Snow White. Admittedly, Walt Disney had been working on Snow White for nearly four years before its release. Paramount saw Snow White in 1937 and told Max Fleisher they needed an animated feature. Leaving about two years for Fleisher to get a script and put together a team to complete it and release it. You can see where corners were cut and the fact that Fleisher’s animators did not get the extra training and education Disney required his. With the exception of Gulliver, and to a lesser degree the Prince and Princes, all the characters are very cartoony and would look just as at home in a Betty Boop cartoon. Those are the films that Fleisher’s animators knew how to and had been making. They’d, in the past, experimented with rotoscoping (tracing over motion picture footage to produce realistic animated action). Max Fleischer had developed and used it dating back to the silent days in his “Out of the Inkwell” and “Koko the Clown” shorts. In the 1940’s he’d use it extensively in the Superman shorts he produced. The character of Gulliver was animated completely with rotoscope.

     The same actor acted out the reference scenes and voiced Gulliver- Sam Parker. The rotoscope stuff looks cool but there is something of a disconnect between the Lilliputians and Gulliver. They are so cartoony. The three spies don’t even seem to have bones, they are “rubber hose” limned characters, like Olive Oil in the Popeye cartoons. The backgrounds are all quite lushly painted, and the use of Technicolor really brings the world to life. The story feels a bit rushed and Gulliver is never in any danger. As matter of fact he is, from the moment he wakes up, not really taken aback by the Lilliputians. Just accepting and quite jolly. I think that if I had just been shipwrecked and woke up surrounded by little, teeny people, I’d be a little freaked out. It’s 76-minute running time (Snow White was 83 minutes) didn’t leave a lot of room for character development. Like Snow White there are a few songs. Mainly performed by the Prince and Princess, but “It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Day” is first sung, and performed ironically, by Gabby, and turns up a few times in the movie. Later it would become a theme for the Fleischer Studios cartoons. I didn’t find myself humming any of the songs after watching. How many songs from Snow White do you recall? I’m not saying Gulliver’s Travels was a failure, it was successful, a hit even. I did enjoy it. Even as an adult, though it is definitely even more aimed at children than Disney’s Snow White. The plot is even more simplistic than Snow White and, while still very good, features inferior animation, when compared to Disney’s film.

     The original concept was to use the popular Popeye as the Gulliver character, but that didn’t last long. Remember the Fleischer Studio was under the gun to complete it as soon as they could. Much like today, the studio had promised a release date before production had even started. The Studio had also recently relocated from New York City to Miami Florida. Making the delivery of supplies and communication with Paramount more difficult and slower. Fleischer was able to convince some west coast animators to relocate and took advantage of students from Miami Art schools to work on the film. Again, Gulliver’s Travels did pretty well and grossed about one million dollars for Paramount. So, they ordered another feature to release in 1941. That turned out to be Mr. Bug Goes to Town. It bombed for various reasons-- the breakdown of the relationship between brothers Max and director Dave Fleischer, the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor, and the box office failures of Disney’s Pinocchio and Fantasia. So, Mr. Bug Goes to Town was the final animated feature from Paramount.

     Due to the studios failure to renew the copyright in 1967, Gulliver’s Travels fell into the Public Domain. So, DVD copies and YouTube versions are of varying levels of quality. I found a very good copy in an interesting place...Wikipedia. On the Gulliver’s Travels movie Wikipedia page there is a link to a beautiful print of the full movie. It has to be a restored version. The image is crisp and the colors pop. So, if you want to check it out, I’d recommend watching from that source and not even trying those on YouTube. Gulliver’s Travels is, of course, available on DVD. Again, most are of poor quality, but there was a Blu-Ray release- “Fleischer Classics Featuring Gulliver's Travels Plus Eight Fantastic Cartoons from the Golden Age of Animation”. It is, sadly, out of print at this time. So those still selling it have it going for over $50. Until it gets a reissue I recommend the Wikipedia link.