The history of animation in cinema is almost as long as the history of cinema itself. However, to simplify matters, the first animated film that we know about dates back to the late 1800s, but the earliest surviving film dates back to 1900, it was a stop motion film titled "Humourous Phases of Funny Faces" and it's a really fascinating short. Following that, the story is pretty known by many people, Winsor McCay and Gertie the Dinosaur, Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat and in 1917 in Argentina the first ever animated movie was released titled "El Apostol", sadly it has become lost to time, and the oldest surviving animated feature dates ahead to 1926 with "The Adventures of Prince Achmed". Most of the films from this time have been lost, but a handful do survive, including one film from 1937 titled "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", a major success for Disney and an inspiration for animation in the future, in fact, one studio known as Fleischer Studios was hoping to duplicate the success of Snow White by making their own feature in 1939, a movie simply known as "Gulliver's Travels".
This is probably the oldest non-Disney animated movie in my collection, so I was interested in seeing this one. A lot of people throw heaps of praise onto Snow White, and fairly so it is a wonderful movie, and people are starting to know more about Lotte Reiniger and her movie "The Adventures of Prince Achmed", but it seems nobody acknowledges this movie. Is that fair? Yes... No... Maybe... Well, let's take a look.
Plotwise, it's a telling of the sailor Gulliver and his time in the land of Lilliput. I've never really read the full Gulliver story, so I'd have to assume this is mostly accurate. The plot doesn't have any major plot holes or massive glaring issues, but I do have to wonder, this whole conflict was started because the king's could not decide on what song to sing at the wedding of the prince and princess, why didn't either of them think to sing them both, or a medley of the two, I thought of that before Gulliver woke up. Actually that is a bit of another thing, the opening of this movie is just so padded. First we see Gulliver wash up on the shore, then we see a Lilliputian walk up to him, but we see his whole walk and get a song number. We also get a dumb bit of comedy where they walk onto Gulliver and take time finding out that they're standing on the giant they we're meant to be looking for. We also get to see every last detail of how they tie Gulliver up, load him onto a cart and pull him into the city. I guess the latter could be necessary to show, it does show how these characters solve this problem, but it's just not fun to watch. Honestly that is a big problem with this movie, a lot of the scenes just aren't fun to watch.
I almost hate to do this, since I don't think this is really fair to do, but in Snow White there is a scene which serves little to the plot. It's when the dwarfs are playing music and dancing with Snow White. It leads into the song "Someday My Prince Will Come", but other than that it could be cut, but we'd miss it because it's a really entertaining scene. I don't want to compare this movie to Snow White too much, I think every movie, even response films like this, should have the chance to stand on their own. Still, I can't help but make the comparison sometimes.
Character wise... this movie doesn't have no character, but they're just not very strong. You've got one character named Gabby who is, as his name would imply, always talking. Gulliver is your standard kind soul character, not unlike Snow White, but even then the comparison isn't too apt. While Snow White is generally kind and nice, we do see her be bossy in the film, demanding the Dwarfs wash their hands before they eat. When Gulliver is scolding the kings, his tone isn't really different from the rest of the movie. I guess that's a fault with the acting and directing, but it is a good point to bring up. Even the Princess, when she speaks it's just an offhanded remark, she doesn't even sound concerned when the Prince is going to divert the gunshot away from Gulliver. One thing I do like is that the other king, King Bombo genuinely doesn't seem like he wants to go to war. You can see it in his face that he's having second thoughts, but has to keep up appearances to his men.
Speaking of that, the animation is for the most part, really good. You can see all the small details of the tension of ropes tightening around Gulliver, or the light of lanterns seeping through the gaps between the bridge boards. The rubber hose animation of the little people is energetic and really well done. I think Gulliver was done in rotoscope, but if not you can still tell that his animation style is different from the rest. I can't say it mixes particularly well, but it's not distracting so I can give it a pass. I should note that I have this movie on VHS and the tape has most likely deteriorated a bit, even then though, looking at better resolution clips online the palette is nothing special, there aren't really any moments that impressed me with the visual beauty of the scene. That said, I think this has one of the first low angle shots in an animated feature, or one of the earliest anyway, you don't see these kind of shots in animated films at this time, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
The movie also has a few song numbers, and they aren't really special. I actually think the background score is better. With all this in mind, I can't help but get the feeling this was just a theatrical short, but with a feature length run time, like they treated this movie as just a feature length theatrical short. I mean, it looks and sounds like a theatrical short, it ends like a theatrical short, it's even kind of paced like a theatrical short. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised but then you think about it, Snow White didn't have this same feeling, it looked and sounded like it's own movie. Don't get me wrong, I love theatrical shorts, Pink Panther and Goofy cartoons are two of my favourites, but they work best at seven to ten minutes, not feature length, some would even say not twenty-one minutes like some Disney Snowmen get.
that is kinda where my feelings towards this movie stand. Is it a good movie, kinda, but at the same time not really. If you have little kids then maybe they'll enjoy it. It is kind of the same emotional storytelling of Snow White, but it looks and feels like a theatrical short. There are lots of good theatrical shorts out there to show kids who are into cartoons, again I'm really partial to Pink Panther shorts myself, and their are lots of really good movies to show. I guess this one has just aged, which is probably the reason that this film has kind of become obscure. Snow White has aged but is still mostly timeless, you can watch it today and still find some enjoyment. Gulliver's Travels has good elements, some wonderful animation, good gags and a fairly solid plot, but it's got some flaws that did hold my enjoyment back a bit. The voice acting, the forgettable songs, the bland characters. I don't think this is a bad movie per se, but it isn't particularly great. I think it's worth checking out if your curious.
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