As Viagens de Gulliver

The special effects that let Gulliver be a giant in Lilliput and a mite in Brobdingnag are by the reigning genius of the day, Ray Harryhausen, but writer/director Jack Sher's 1960 film wisely uses them only in the service of the story. They have held up quite well, in part because they were used with restraint to begin with and they do nothing to interrupt or distract from the story and its points. (A minor exception could be the fight with a giant animated crocodile that must have been damn fun for the effects team, but even it is kept within reason.)

Is this a film for children or a film for adults? The too-easy answer is that it is obviously a children's version: There is none of the trumped-up insanity element that the dreary-but-great-looking 1996 TV movie shoe-horned in for cheap drama. Neither is there the despair or genuine misanthropy of the book.

Only Lilliput and Brobdingnag are visited. (No Laputa, Balnibari, Luggnag, Glubbdubdrib, Japan, or Houyhnhnms. The third world is Gulliver's own normal-sized world.) Gulliver puts out the fire in Lilliput by spitting wine. (In the book, the wine has been processed by Gulliver's bladder before he douses the fire with it.) Many characters, though not all, are all done in a cartoonish way clearly aimed at children. The travels are framed within the added-on love story of Gulliver and his fiancée Elizabeth.

These are good choices. Children are inherently interested in the size contrasts. (It must add something to the experience that first they identify with the Lilliputians but later identify with Gulliver.) Spitting the wine is good enough. The cartoonish-ness makes the characters less threatening than they could have been. The love story is light and easy to follow, and promotes marriage.

There are even a couple of musical numbers, one a love song that Gulliver sings. The Bernard Herrmann score is a fine complement to the film, as you would expect from the composer of music for the original Psycho, Citizen Kane, Magnificent Ambersons, Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Day the Earth Stood Still, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (tv), Have Gun Will Travel (tv), Perry Mason (tv), Twilight Zone, Cape Fear (1962), Taxi Driver, and on and on and on.

But Sher's script and direction have preserved some important points and spirit from the book: The gratitude of princes is short-lived. The causes of war can be shockingly petty. Vanity and unreason among the powerful make truth an early casualty in the pursuit of power. The various unpleasant characters (and the few nice ones) actually reflect things inside all of us. If it's okay for an adult to be reminded of these things in a playful way (certainly more playful than the original), then this film will amuse and inform that adult.

And what are Gulliver and Elizabeth doing when their ball-field sized marriage license falls over them like a tent, and King Brob, peeking under it, is moved to say, "You're right dear. I'd better marry them at once."

Ultimately, it has to go down in the books as a children's film, but surely an uncommon one: an intelligent adaptation, if abridged and lighthearted, of a great classic, that stands on its own for entertainment and, if you like, can whet your child's appetite for the book when that time arrives.

Like the tacked-on love story, there is a tacked-on ending that suggests that the whole thing might have been a dream. I originally found this annoying.

These days, watching with my little girl, I find that I'm glad for the admittedly sore-thumb reminder that the value of the story is not in whether those characters do or don't exist, but in what the story says about what is within us. As with all such points in the film, you'll have to talk with your child a bit to be sure that it comes across, but what a pleasure - to find a film that sparks such a discussion with your child.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------

Other works by Jack Sher:

-------------------------------------------------------- Writer - filmography -------------------------------------------------------- Female Artillery (1972) (TV) (story) Goodbye, Raggedy Ann (1971) (TV) Move Over, Darling (1963) Critic's Choice (1963) Love in a Goldfish Bowl (1961) Paris Blues (1961) 3 Worlds of Gulliver, The (1960) ... aka Worlds of Gulliver, The (1960) Wild and the Innocent, The (1959) Kathy O' (1958) (also story) Joe Butterfly (1957) Four Girls in Town (1956) Walk the Proud Land (1956) ... aka Apache Agent (1956) World in My Corner (1956) (also story) Kid from Left Field, The (1953) Off Limits (1953) ... aka Military Policemen (1953) (UK) Shane (1953) (additional dialogue) My Favorite Spy (1951)

-------------------------------------------------------- Director - filmography -------------------------------------------------------- Love in a Goldfish Bowl (1961) 3 Worlds of Gulliver, The (1960) ... aka Worlds of Gulliver, The (1960) Wild and the Innocent, The (1959) Kathy O' (1958) Four Girls in Town (1956)

(with thanks to The Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com)

This takes place in 1699 England. Dr. Gulliver (Kerwin Mathews) is poor and miserable in England. He takes an ocean voyage and is swept overboard during a storm. He comes to in a land named Lilliput which are all people shorter than him. He agrees to help the people of Lilliput to stop a war and build him a boat to get off. Then he ends up in another land where he's the small person and everybody else is a giant.

I never read the book it was based on so I can't make comparisons...but the book was a political satire. Obviously this does not make it into the movie--this is aimed squarely at kids. The characterizations are broad (to say the least) and some of the characters act like total idiots (to amuse the kids). It also has simplistic (if amusing) remarks on how war is evil and people have to live for themselves. The story moves haltingly--it seems large chunks were either not filmed or left on the cutting room floor. Also Mathews breaks into song (!!!) at one point. It's more than a little silly but Mathews does have a great singing voice. Also the special effects by Ray Harryhausen aren't really that special--they're more than obvious.

The film is very colorful and I was never really bored--most of the time though I was trying to figure out what was going on. Kerwin Mathews was easily one of the best-looking men ever to come out of Hollywood. His acting is just OK but really--the guy had to react to things that just weren't there. That couldn't have been easy. So the color and Mathews kept me entertained...but most adults will probably be thoroughly bored. I think kids will like it but I can only truthfully give it a 6.

A poor Englishman doctor called Gulliver (Kerwin Matthews) has adventurer plans , so nothing keeps him in the little town he lives , not even his girlfriend Elisabeth (June Thornburn) who wishes to marry him . He signs on to a ship to India in spite of objections his beautiful fiancée . But in a storm he's washed ashore and discovers a fantasy land of small inhabitants called Lilliput in the East Indies where everyone is about two inches tall . Later on , he managed to convince them he's harmless and is accepted as one of their villagers , but their king wants to utilize him in war against his enemies . After that , Gulliver goes to land of Bobdingnag where inhabits giant people .

This is an amusing adventure movie , a colorful family rendition of Jonathan Swift's classic as well as satiric novel written in 1726 . Many scenarios have been constructed in miniature , others have been made by special techniques and remaining are staged by natural outdoors from Spain such as Alcázar de Segovia, Segovia, Ávila, Palacio de La Granja De San Ildefonso palace, La Granja, San Ildefonso, Segovia, Castilla y León, and Paltja d'Aro, Girona, Catalonia . Flavorful performance from Kerwin Matthews , Jo Morrow , Lee Patterson , Gregoire Aslan , Basil Sydney , Martin Benson , among others . Adequate and spectacular art direction by Gil Parrondo who subsequently would achieve Academy Award for Patton . Rousing and evocative score of Bernard Herrmann , Hitchcock's regular . Glimmer and glamorous scenarios well photographed by Wilkie Cooper . Professional though uneven direction by filmmaker Jack Sher

The highlights of the movie are the great visual effects by craftsman Ray Harryhausen , including his ordinary monsters using his customary system Dynamation . After three sci-fi monster films such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms , 20 Million Miles to Earth , It Came from Beneath the Sea and work with Willis O'Brien in Mighty Joe Young and on an Irwin Allen documentary titled : The animal world , Harryhausen did the effects work for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad or Sinbad and the princess (1958) also starred by Kerwin Matthews , his first split-screen film shot entirely in color, which was highlighted by Harryhausen's mythological monsters interacting with actors . Because Harryhausen worked alone on his stop-motion animation sequences, the filming of these could often take as long as two years, the most famous example of the kind of patience required being the exciting skeleton sword fight sequence in his most popular film Jason and the Argonauts (1963) in which Harryhausen often shot no more than 13 frames of film (one-half second of elapsed time) per day . The 1960s were Harryhausen's best years, among the spotlights being his reunions with dinosaurs and other creatures in Hammer Films' One Million Years B.C (1966) , The Valley of Gwangi (1969) , Mysterious Island (1961) and this The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) . His pace slowed in the 1970s, but he produced three of his masterworks during that period : The fantastic voyage of Sinbad (1973); Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) and Clash of Titans (1981).

Other versions about this immortal novel are the followings : ¨Gulliver's travels¨(1939) by Max and Dave Fleischer , being an animated retelling ; ¨Gulliver's travels¨(1977) by Peter Hunt with Richard Harris , Catherine Schell , in which real life and cartoon mix in a three-dimensional tale ; TV adaptation (1995) by Charles Sturridge with Mary Steenburgen , Edward Fox , Peter O'Toole , Edward Woodward , Ned Beatty , in which Gulliver/Ted Danson is confined in Bedlam insane asylum after being lost at sea for eight years and he relates his odd adventures in the tiny land and among the giants and the silly and impractical intellectual of Laputa . And recent comical recounting (2010) by Rob Letterman with Jack Black , Jason Segel , Emily Blunt and Amanda Peet .

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 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