Die drei Welten des Gulliver

The Three Worlds of Gulliver is produced out of Columbia Pictures and is directed by Jack Sher. It stars Kerwin Matthews as Lemuel Gulliver, June Thorburn as his fiancée Elizabeth, with support coming from Basil Sydney (The Emperor of Lilliput), Grégoire Aslan (King Brob), Mary Ellis (Queen), Charles Lloyd Pack (Prime Minister Makovan) & child actor Sherry Alberoni as Glumdalclitch. Filmed in England and Spain, it features stop-motion animation and special visual effects by Superdynamation genius Ray Harryhausen. Sher & Arthur Ross adapt for the screen with a loose reworking of the 18th-century English novel Gulliver's Travels written by Jonathan Swift. And music maestro Bernard Herrmann provides the score.

Swift's biting satirical novel has been watered down and given a romantic edge for the family market. That said, as the kids are enjoying the froth and tickle, the adults will note that there's just enough caustic comment in the piece to get the message across. This adaptation has slimmed down the four parts of Swift's work to just the two; Lilliput land of the little people and Brobdingnag land of the giants. With our intrepid normal sized hero Gulliver and his stowaway fiancée Elizabeth under threat either way.

While the script has its pleasing moments it is still only serving as a bridging work for Harryhausen's effects to be shown. Be it the giant and tiny people sequences or the perils that come to our undersized protagonists courtesy of a Gator and a Squirrel, it's these that the children will find beguiling. This, however, can not be said for Harryhausen aficionados or adults more accustomed to more modern advancements. For this is bottom rung for Harryhausen, not bad at all, yet although there's a charm here, and no one should ever dismiss the painstaking amount of time it took him to weave it together, the work is creaky and lacking the dynamism so befitting his best work.

Major bonus' come with the swirling and pounding score from Herrmann and the vibrant performance of Matthews. The role of Gulliver was first offered to Danny Kaye, which naturally makes sense given Kaye's previous work on Hans Christian Andersen some years earlier. That it was also offered to Jack Lemmon, though, makes no sense at all. Anyway, Matthews got the gig, and following on from his fine work in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, he laid down a marker in the fantasy adventure genre that secured him fondness from legions of fans throughout the years. A safe, colourful and pleasant enough piece if ultimately not one for most fantasy adventure fans to revisit often. 6/10

Never viewed this 1960 film dealing with Gulliver's travels and found it very enjoyable to view along with excellent photography. The story starts out with Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, (Kerwin Williams) having a fight with his girlfriend, Elizabeth, (June Thorburn) about his wanting to go aboard a ship as a doctor and she does not want him to leave. The ship sails and becomes shipwrecked and Gulliver finds himself in a completely different land where there are miniature people and he appears to them as a huge giant who must be captured and tied up. The rest of the story will hold your interest from the very beginning to the end and I almost forgot, a war was almost started over cutting an egg on the top and other people who cut their eggs on the bottom of the shell. Enjoy.

Lemuel Gulliver (Kerwin Matthews) is a hardworking but not very wealthy doctor who wants to make a success of himself in order to provide for his betrothed, Elizabeth (played by the gorgeous June Thorburn, who sadly died way too young in a plane crash). Taking a position as a ship's physician, Gulliver hopes to earn enough money to pay for a cottage, but he doesn't realise that Elizabeth has stowed aboard the vessel to be with him.

During a storm, Gulliver is washed overboard and finds himself in the land of Lilliput, where he is a giant compared to the inhabitants. After failing to solve a conflict between the Lilliputians and the neighbouring Blefuscudians, who are at war over which end of an egg should be cracked before eating, he escapes, only to end up in Brobdingnag, where he is the tiny one (along with Elizabeth, with whom he is reunited). Treated as toys by the Brobdingnagian king (Grégoire Aslan), and accused of witchcraft by royal sorcerer Makovan (Charles Lloyd Pack), Gulliver and Elizabeth escape back to England with the help of a young Brobdingnagian girl, Glumdalclitch (Sherri Alberoni).

Fantasy film legend Ray Harryhausen delivers a whole host of excellent special effects in The 3 World's of Gulliver, utilising hundreds of travelling mattes and some very convincing forced perspective to achieve marvellous results. However, those looking for lots of Harryhausen's trademark stop motion work might well be a little disappointed: there's a cool animated crocodile, with which Gulliver battles, a mini menagerie, and a rather moth-eaten looking squirrel (which is far from the man's finest work). But that's it.

Still, with such a timeless tale, performed by a wonderful cast, it's hard not to have a good time with this charming fantasy which not only astounds with its stunning visuals, but also acts as a satire about politics and imperialism, and as an indictment of human nature, illustrating man's many weaknesses: vanity, pride, ignorance, jealousy, stubbornness etc. (as per Jonathan Swift's novel, or so I believe—can't say I've ever read it).

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) *** Fantastic adaptation of Jonathan Swift's classic tale about Dr. Lemuel Gulliver (Kerwin Mathews) who embarks on an unusual odyssey involving the tiny denizens of Lilliput and the giants of Brobdignagnan including the adolescent giantess Glumdalclitch (Sherry Alberoni) with a wonderful blend of action and the great stop-motion animations of Ray Harryhausen's. Fun for the entire family. ** Personal note: Begging for a Hollywood remake with a female Gulliver (Gina Gershon anyone?)

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver could easily have been made into an adult satire as Jonathan Swift originally intended, but I daresay Columbia Pictures would not have realized too much box office had they gone that route.

I saw it as a 13 year old back in the day in theater which is really the only way to appreciate the special effects of Ray Harryhausen. It's a wonderful film for a juvenile, but later in reading about the times one can appreciate what Swift was trying to say and the humorous way he said it.

At the time Gulliver's Travels was originally written the age of the religious wars of the 17th century was coming to an end. Swift was a member of the Tory Party who sought to put an end to the War of Spanish Succession which the Whigs in power seemed to drag on and on. For the Whig view of the conflict I suggest strongly reading Winston Churchill's Life of Marlborough which equates the Tories of the day with the Baldwin-Chamberlain led Tories of the Thirties. Swift looked about and just saw a lot of carnage with power politics and religion all jumbled together so that you could not tell where one left off and the other began.

Gulliver's Travels is how Swift saw the world of his day, religious intolerance and a budding imperialism. Swift was in fact an ordained minister who apparently had a vision that HIS way of worship was not necessarily THE way of worship for all. A novel idea back then, expressed in the war the Lilliputians and Blefescuans wage over which end of the egg to break.

The Brobdingnag tale where Gulliver once a giant in Lilliput is now a small wee creature in a land of giants. And these giants think that because they're bigger and mightier they can rule over all. They see Gulliver and his bride as pets to kept as long as they amuse. It's a classic commentary against imperialism, unusual in its day and made Swift most unpopular in high places.

These issues aren't for kids of the Saturday matinée crowd and Kerwin Matthews as Gulliver is playing for them. Matthews had a great career doing these fantasy things and he was real good in them. Maybe because he played the roles absolutely straight and we believed because he believed the part.

Ray Harryhausen is at the top of his game and the film holds up very well. Even better in fact when you know the background from which the material came from.