Gulliver’s Travels is a cel-animated feature film in Technicolor, made in 1939, by Fleischer Studios. This Academy award Nominated film was produced by Max Fleischer and directed by Dave Fleischer, and developed to answer to the fame and success Disney studio had with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
This movie is half carton/animation half film, and it was the second animated film ever made and produced by a studio which isn’t Walt Disney Studio (or some of its partners). The plot is taken from a book from 18th century – Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, which describes Gulliver’s adventures in the land of tiny people called Lilliput.
Max and Dave Fleischer had the idea to make this movie for years, but Paramount (the studio which distributed their movies) didn’t give them the green light, until Disney’s Snow White was finished and became an instant success. After Paramount gave them the green light and offered facilities for their project, Max and Dave started working on their animations for this cartoon. After overcoming various technical problems, as well as some tough situations inside their creative team (departure of few important people) they have successfully developed their cartoon (they have used rotoscoping, technique developed by their very own Fleischer Studios).
This animated film had excellent songs included and they later became cartoon standards: All is well; It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Day and other melodies. Gulliver’s Travels was an instant box office hit. Thanks to this film, Fleischer studio got funds for another feature Mister Bug Goes to town.
Gulliver’s Travels has a magnificent plot, and that is one of the reasons it was so well accepted. Gulliver is a main character who ends up on a mysterious island (after a storm) called Lilliput. This island has its settlers named Lilliputians, and they are very small, tiny people. Gulliver gets in the middle of the fight between people on the island, and tries very hard to help them. A lot of problems occur, his life is in danger at some point, but eventually, in the end, Gulliver helps them resolve their problems, and ends up unifying the whole island.
This cartoon/film became very popular in a short notice because of remarkable story and spectacular adventure developed. The audience was instantly blown away by the way movie was made, and loved all songs which were featured.
The whole cast and crew was equally responsible for this meteoric success: Dave and Max Fleischer (who directed and produced the movie), Dan Gordon, Cal Howard, Tedd Pierce, Edmond Seward and Isadore Sparber (who wrote the story – developed it for the big screen), and of course amazing actors who played in the film part – Pinto Colvig, Jack Mercer, Sam Parker and Jessica Dragonette to name just few.
The studio which supported this pioneer project was Paramount Pictures, and the movie premiered on December 22, 1939. Today, the copyright has expired and the movie Gulliver’s Travels is in the public domain. It was even re-released on Blu-ray, on March 10th, 2009.
Franck Benedittini
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