Gulliver's Travels (1939 film) - DVD - FLEISCHER STUDIOS - AVENUE ONE / Australian PAL Region Free Edition / Director: Dave Fleischer / An animated feature based on Jonathan Swift's 18th century immortal tale

Gulliver's Travels (1939 film) - DVD - FLEISCHER STUDIOS - AVENUE ONE / Australian PAL Region Free Edition / Director: Dave Fleischer

Gulliver's Travels is a 1939 American cel-animated Technicolor feature film, produced by Max Fleischer and directed by Dave Fleischer for Fleischer Studios about an explorer who helps a small kingdom who declared war after an argument over a wedding song. The film was released to cinemas in the United States on December 22, 1939 by Paramount Pictures, which had the feature produced in response to the success of Walt Disney's box-office hit Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The sequences for the film were directed by Seymour Kneitel, Willard Bowsky, Tom Palmer, Grim Natwick, William Henning, Roland Crandall, Thomas Johnson, Robert Leffingwell, Frank Kelling, Winfield Hoskins, and Orestes Calpini. This is Fleischer Studios' first feature-length animated film.

The film was the second animated feature film produced by an American studio, the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from Walt Disney Productions. The story is based very loosely on that of Lilliput and Blefuscu depicted in the first part of Jonathan Swift's 18th century novel, Gulliver's Travels.

Plot

On November 5, 1699, Lemuel Gulliver washes onto the beach of Lilliput after a storm at sea and ultimate shipwreck. Following the calm of the storm, the town crier Gabby stumbles across Gulliver in terror and rushes back to Lilliput to warn King Little of a "giant on the beach". But Little and King Bombo of Blefescu are signing a wedding contract between their children, Princess Glory and Prince David of Blefuscu, respectively.. All is fine until an argument starts over which national anthem is to be played at the wedding. The argument cancels the wedding and starts a war.

After several failures, Gabby tells King Little of the "giant", and leads a mob to the beach to capture him. There, the Lilliputians tie Gulliver to a wagon on which they convey him to the capital. In the next morning, Gulliver awakens and breaks himself free; but when they see that the invading Blefuscuians are intimidated by his size, the Lilliputians enlist his help against their neighbor, treating him with hospitality and making him a new set of clothes.

King Bombo, who has sent three spies, Sneak, Snoop, and Snitch, into Lilliput, orders them to kill Gulliver, whereupon the spies steal Gulliver's flintlock pistol, confiscated by the Lilliputians, and prepare to use it against him. Meanwhile, Gulliver learns of the war's cause from Glory and David, and proposes a new song that combines the two proposed by their fathers.

When the spies assure King Bombo that they can kill Gulliver, Bombo announces by carrier pigeon that he will attack at dawn. Gabby intercepts this message and warns the Lilliputians, but is himself captured by the spies and stuffed in a sack, who prepare the pistol. As the Blefuscuian fleet approaches Lilliput, Gulliver ties them together and draws them disarmed to shore. The spies fire at Gulliver from a cliff, but Prince David diverts the shot and falls to his apparent death. Using David's body to illustrate his point, Gulliver scolds both Lilliput and Blefuscu for fighting; when they solemnize a truce, Gulliver reveals that David is unharmed, whereupon David and Glory sing their combined song for everyone to hear. The spies released Gabby out of the bag. Both sides thereafter build a new ship for Gulliver on which he departs.

Cast

• Gulliver - Sam Parker
• Gabby - Pinto Colvig
• King Little, Twinkletoes, Sneak, Snoop, Snitch - Jack Mercer
• King Bombo - Tedd Pierce
• Princess Glory - Jessica Dragonette - Spoken Voice: Livonia Warren
• Prince David - Singing Voice Lanny Ross - Spoken Voice: Cal Howard

Songs

• "All's Well"
• "Faithful/Forever"
• "It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day"
• "Bluebirds in the Moonlight (Silly Idea)"
• "I Hear a Dream (Come Home Again)"
• "We're All Together Now"

All of the songs were written by Leo Robin and composed by Ralph Rainger with the exception of "It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day", which was written by Sammy Timberg, Al Neiburg and Winston Sharples.

The Gulliver's Travels score by Victor Young was nominated for a Best Original Score Academy Award while the song "Faithful/Forever" was nominated for Best Original Song, but both of them lost out to The Wizard of Oz with the film winning the latter category for the song "Over the Rainbow". "It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day" later became a standard theme used for Fleischer and Famous Studios cartoon scores, while "I Hear a Dream" was quite popular as well.