Gulliver nel paese di Lilliput

The originality, strangeness, and mild humor that turned Jonathan Swift's novel, Gulliver's Travels into a classic is not captured at all in this poorly made adaptation of the novel. Please, save the risk of runing the book, and avoid watching this film. Trust me.

This is the famous tale of a man called Gulliver who is shipwrecked on an island inhabited by tiny people from a land called Lilliput. Before long he finds himself caught between two warring kingdoms.

This version of Gulliver's Travels has to count as being something of a curious obscurity. It was obviously a film that came and went quite quickly at the time and has consequently become largely forgotten. It stars Richard Harris pretty much on his own, owing to the fact that this is one of the earliest films to attempt a live-action/animation hybrid, with Harris playing the part of Gulliver and all the Lilliputians being cartoon characters. I think for this reason it remains quite interesting. The animation is pretty basic, although quite a lot of 70's cartoons were generally, so it isn't alone in this. But it's pleasingly unusual to see Harris interacting with these animated characters and towering over the models of the little city. It's certainly a film aimed squarely at kids though, with the people of Lilliput coming across like creations from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. There were also a few songs as well, which only added further to the genre mash-up that this movie constitutes. It's a pretty ropey effort to be absolutely honest but it also has a charm and earnest endeavour about it which ensured that it was quite an enjoyable watch.

Only covers Gulliver's time in Lilliput. My brother and i first saw this on TV as a Nickelodeon Special Delivery. Luckily we had it recorded, and we watched it many times over the years. However, on review, it had it's moments even if it got a little tedious at times. BUT, there are cute little songs that are not in any other versions of Gulliver. That's what will stick with you. the song "Politics" is really funny. Such a great commentary on how arbitrary the art of politics really is. But, if you want a good representation of the book, i would suggest another version. Kids would be amused though.

This was painful! Recently given away as a free DVD with a British newspaper, this British-Belgian co-production from 1977 (could've fooled me, it looks ten years older than that at least) is quite deservedly obscure and if you make it past the half-hour mark, consider yourself a trouper. The combining of animation and live action is ropey at best and downright dreadful at worst, which makes you wonder why it was decided to even attempt making the film in this manner when clearly the technology wasn't really there. Harris is no more than a human prop and the animation is some of the most flat and lifeless I've seen, with the obligatory 'trippy' moments (especially where the animation of the brainiac-type Subtracto character is involved) that rendered countless cartoon features from the late sixties onward instantly dated. The screenplay by Don Black provides a convincing argument for the usually resilient lyricist to stick to what he does best, and the pace is so slow that even the very young will be bored. As for adults, stick to Jonathan Swift's original novel.

I had watched this on Italian TV as a kid and recall being fond of it – in view of its mixing live-action with animation; however, it was universally panned at the time…and, catching up with it again after all these years, I have to admit that the critics were right!

What must have seemed wondrous to a child's eyes is actually very poorly done, not to mention boring for a fantasy-adventure; fatally, both star (ex-'Angry Young Man' Richard Harris) and director (action expert Hunt) are ill-suited to the material! At least, Michel Legrand's score (with lyrics provided by scriptwriter Don Black) is serviceable – if not exactly inspired. By the way, a number of well-known personalities are featured among the voice artists on this British-Belgian co-production (Julian Glover, Bessie Love, Murray Melvin, Robert Rietty, Vladek Sheybal, Graham Stark and, this being his last film work, Michael Bates).

While the essential plot points of Jonathan Swift's classic novel ('giant' Gulliver becomes the pawn in a war between the little people of two neighboring countries and, on escaping, ends up in a land of real giants) do emerge here, it's done on a strictly kiddie level (with stereotyped characters though, thankfully, little intrusion of the comic/romantic variety) – which renders the whole venture somewhat pointless, outside of its intrinsically experimental nature, since Max and Dave Fleischer had already done a splendid feature-length cartoon version of the book way back in 1939!