GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
US, 1939, 74 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Dave Fleischer.
Gulliver's Travels is a delightful animated version of Jonathan Swift's story - the Lilliput story. There was a '70s version with Richard Harris in the title role.
This film came from Max Fleischer's studios. While it might look similar to Disney movies, it came out soon after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and preceded Disney's other feature films. In this sense it was a pioneer work. Fleischer's studios produced the Betty Boop cartoons. (She was to reappear as a guest in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.) It also made the enjoyable feature Hoppity Goes to Town in the early '40s. The songs are enjoyable, the comedy delightful, Swift's point made for the wide audience.
1. Animation in the '30s? This film as a pioneer work? Comparisons with the Disney Studios?
2. The quality of the animation: drawing, figures, layout, style? Colour?
3. The importance of the songs: the nightwatchman and `All's Well'? The kings and their rivalry in `Faithful Forever'? The workers and the `Happy Day' song? Gulliver's soliloquy? The farewell?
4. Jonathan Swift and his famous allegory? The story, the moral? The treatment of the classic?
5. The familiar story? Gulliver, the sailor, the shipwreck, awaking, finding himself tied up, the king, allaying their fears, the meal and the people dancing, the problems of Lilliput, getting his suit and sewing it, his pondering, soliloquy? The battle, his being shot at by the arrows? Taking the ships? Picking up the prince and effecting the reconciliation? Farewell?
6. Lilliput - an allegory for Swift's world? For any time? The happiness, the wedding, the songs, the cake, the fight, the spies? Anger, war over nothing?
7. Glory and the prince, fairytale couple, in love, the marriage, the singing, unhappiness, being brought together, the possibility of the prince's death?
8. The people, ordinary, their fears of Gulliver, tying him up, reaction to his waking up, pleasant, trying to transport him, making him clothes, feeding him?
9. The kings and their style, their bombast, the attacks on each other, pettiness? The bird and its messages? The spies and their evil?
10. The declaration of war, the attack, the ships, Gulliver's intervention?
11. The moral of the story, Gulliver leaving? His effect on Lilliput?
