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17 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
A Gulliver for Kids and Adults, 9 July 2000
Author: wannall from Houston, TX

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.

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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)

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14 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
HIGHLY ENJOYABLE WITH A GREAT SCORE, 22 August 1999
Author: ALAN MOUNT from CARDIFF, WALES

From the same production stable as "THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD",this movie is not quite in the same class as the latter but remains a highly enjoyable piece.A very much watered down version of part of "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS" the film benefits not just from typically superb Harryhausen effects but also from a fabulous score from Bernard Herrmann (one of his very best and sadly neglected)and a performance from Kerwin Mathews as Gulliver that displays the usual integrity displayed by this pleasing actor. The leading female role is attractively played by a very pretty British actress of the period,June Thorburn who fantasy fans may remember from "TOM THUMB".Although it is not as well known or as revived as often as "SINBAD" or " JASON" it is hard to imagine anyone being disappointed by this "GULLIVER" which is far more fun than the Ted Danson version of the mid 90's.

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12 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Pleasant Saturday Matinee Fun, 22 November 2003

Author: Timothy A. Buchser from Colorado, USA

This pleasant yet dated little 1960 family movie arrives is part of Columbia TriStar's "Ray Harryhausen Signature Collection." However, unlike Jason and the Argonauts, First Men in the Moon, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and 20 Million Miles to Earth, there's not much here to thrill the average Harryhausen fan. Other than a quick battle with a giant alligator and a dino-sized squirrel that's more mirthful than menacing, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver doesn't depend on Harryhausen's famed stop-motion monsters to menace our hero. Instead, it features cinematic effects that make seafarer Dr. Lemuel Gulliver (7th Voyage's Sinbad, Kerwin Mathews) a skyscraper-tall behemoth on the isle of Lilliput and a doll-sized castaway "witch" in the court of Brobdingnag. The script is just a wire hanger for the "giant/tiny" effects scenes, but the story moves briskly (even a pair of treacly song-breaks don't get much in the way), and it should particularly appeal to the under-10 set who haven't yet become jaundiced to anything pre-dating modern CGI gloss. Mathews is plenty wholeseome and likable in a role first offered to Danny Kaye and (no kidding) Jack Lemmon. And Gulliver's fiancé/wife (June Thorburn) is perfunctory but not too much of a drip. Look for Peter Bull, Dr. Strangelove's Russian ambassador, in a small role. Of course the script is loosely based on the first half of Jonathan Swift's ribald 1726 novel, Gulliver's Travels. While the book remains one of the hardest-biting social satires ever to draw blood from the pompous and the political, few of those teeth remain in this truncated adaptation. Nonetheless, the Lilliputian social order and its Emperor's single-minded war against a neighboring island - fought over an absurdly trivial matter inflated to genocidal levels by unbending ideological fervor - are still recognizable targets. Visually, Harryhausen's tall/small effects are well done, though a viewer accustomed to more recent breakthroughs should expect to see the seams showing and hear the floorboards creaking. For a good number of fans, Bernard Herrmann's fine score is the chief appeal here.

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12 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
The Worlds of Jonathan Swift, 18 May 2007

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver could easily have been made into an adult satire as Jonathan Swift originally intended, but I daresay Columbia Pictures would not have realized too much box office had they gone that route.

I saw it as a 13 year old back in the day in theater which is really the only way to appreciate the special effects of Ray Harryhausen. It's a wonderful film for a juvenile, but later in reading about the times one can appreciate what Swift was trying to say and the humorous way he said it.

At the time Gulliver's Travels was originally written the age of the religious wars of the 17th century was coming to an end. Swift was a member of the Tory Party who sought to put an end to the War of Spanish Succession which the Whigs in power seemed to drag on and on. For the Whig view of the conflict I suggest strongly reading Winston Churchill's Life of Marlborough which equates the Tories of the day with the Baldwin-Chamberlain led Tories of the Thirties. Swift looked about and just saw a lot of carnage with power politics and religion all jumbled together so that you could not tell where one left off and the other began.

Gulliver's Travels is how Swift saw the world of his day, religious intolerance and a budding imperialism. Swift was in fact an ordained minister who apparently had a vision that HIS way of worship was not necessarily THE way of worship for all. A novel idea back then, expressed in the war the Lilliputians and Blefescuans wage over which end of the egg to break.

The Brobdingnag tale where Gulliver once a giant in Lilliput is now a small wee creature in a land of giants. And these giants think that because they're bigger and mightier they can rule over all. They see Gulliver and his bride as pets to kept as long as they amuse. It's a classic commentary against imperialism, unusual in its day and made Swift most unpopular in high places.

These issues aren't for kids of the Saturday matinée crowd and Kerwin Matthews as Gulliver is playing for them. Matthews had a great career doing these fantasy things and he was real good in them. Maybe because he played the roles absolutely straight and we believed because he believed the part.

Ray Harryhausen is at the top of his game and the film holds up very well. Even better in fact when you know the background from which the material came from.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
What you don't understand you want to destroy!, 28 June 2010

Author: JohnRouseMerriottChard from United Kingdom

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, tho, 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

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Good, 1 September 2010

Author: Cosmoeticadotcom (cosmoetica@gmail.com) from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver I first saw on the big screen, and in color, and later saw it a few times on television, but not for a quarter century or so. So, I had to rewatch the 100 minute film. Kerwin Matthews, from The Seven Voyages Of Sinbad, does a surprisingly good job as the semi-zomboid, but buff, Dr. Lemuel Gulliver. He plays Gulliver as a real guy his genuineness makes up for his sometimes wooden reactions. June Thorburn plays his fiancée (then wife) Elizabeth. She's sufficient eye candy, and that alone is reason enough to justify her sweet insertion into the tale (she is not in Swift's novel). Gotta love her silly 'Don't ever wanna lay eyes on you again moment' after Gulliver objects to her naïve-te regarding the purchase of an old shack. None of the other actors who play any of the other characters leaves that great an impression, although the girl who plays Glumdalclitch (Sherry Alberoni, a child star on the original The Mickey Mouse Club on television) does a solid job with the little she's given. Her petulance and warmth make her the only semi-realistic character in all of Lilliput (land of the tint people) or Brobdingnag (land of the giants).

This film features less of the stop motion photography Harryhausen was noted for, and more visual tricks involving split screens and traveling mattes, to make use of forced perspective in portraying Gulliver against his smaller and larger costars. Cinematographer Wilkie Cooper is credited in the film, but, realistically, he was, in effect, just a cameraman for Harryhausen.

The story is a simplified version of the Swift novel. Gulliver reluctantly aids the King of Lilliput in his war against the rival state of Blefescu. The war is over which is the proper end of an egg to be opened. After Gulliver steals the Blefescuan Navy ships, the King is still not satisfied, and orders Gulliver to commit genocide on Blefescu. As a doctor and man of honor, he refuses, and is accused of treason. He then flees, and washes up on the shores of Brobdingnag, where Glumdalclitch finds him. The King of Brobdingnag offers to barter for him, then accepts the girl as his protector. Fortuitously, Elizabeth ended up there when she stowed aboard Gulliver's ship. He had been washed overboard to Lilliput, and the ship later destroyed. She seems to have been the lone survivor. The King's doctor accuses Gulliver of witchcraft after he saves the Queen's life with modern medicine, and the two lovers (married by the King) are persecuted. While the Lilliputians and Blefescuans are small in mind regarding politics, the Brobdingnagians are backwards regarding science and medicine. Glumdalclitch therefore rescues the couple, tosses them into a basket, and throws them down a river which washes out to the sea, where the two end up back in England at film's fade. Yes, there's some petty philosophizing by Gulliver, but it works in a campy way. Even the ending which questions whether or not the adventures were all a dream- while trite, is not too big a deal because the film handles everything in a lighthearted way. Had the film been more sober in its claims and portrayal, such an ending would have bombed, especially since it veers so far from the original.

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5 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Kids might like it, 18 May 2007

Author: Wayne Malin (wwaayynnee51@hotmail.com) from United States

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.

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Charming and Instructive Fantasy, 19 October 2010

Author: Robert J. Maxwell (rmax304823@yahoo.com) from Deming, New Mexico, USA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Jonathan Swift's novel, "Gulliver's Travels," is a classic satire from 1726. I once managed to get around to reading his "A Modest Proposal", in which -- apparently in all sincerity -- he suggests that the problem of overpopulation and malnutrition in his native Ireland can be cured simply by having the Irish eat their own children.

Well, that's what satire is, I guess. A send up of current social issues with an element of viciousness that's usually absent from a mere parody. Swift must have found the mores of his time easy targets, just by reducing their characteristics to the absurd. Are the Irish causing you problems? Get rid of them.

In "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver" the problems dealt with are (1) the causes of war among the tiny Lilliputians, and (2) science versus religion among the giant Brobdingnagians. I think some other adventures were deleted. I seem to remember Yahoos and Houyhnhnms and maybe one or two others. But the elisions are okay. Just two of the strange worlds Gulliver visits are enough for one movie. (The third world of the title is his home in England.) I don't know that this story has the same impact as it originally did. Maybe you need some kind of Skeleton Key to pick up the more arcane references, as with "Finnegans Wake," "Alice in Wonderland," or "The Master and Margarita." However, the broader points of the satire should be clear enough to everyone except the kids, who will be tickled by it because it's such a colorful fairy tale.

Kerwin Mathews is an idealistic English doctor, Lemuel Gulliver who is washed overboard at sea and finds himself on an island inhabited by tiny people, the vaguely Arabic Lilliputians. Once the little people get over their astonishment -- because compared to them Gulliver is really HUGE -- they try to talk him into using his immense strength to destroy their enemies on a neighboring island. Man, are the Lilliputians petty, especially the sputtering king. "I have abiding faith in the trustworthiness and reliability of any man that I can kill," he announces. He's dying to go to war and kill his enemies because they open their eggs from the big side rather than the small side, as civilized Lilliputians do. The perceptive adults in the audience are, at this point, permitted to explain to the children that sometimes wars are fought for silly reasons. He wants a warmonger for a Prime Minister, although, "I don't need a Prime Minister to fight a war. I need one to blame if it goes wrong." Here, please explain to the children the meaning of the phrase, "The buck stops there." Gulliver promises to end the war and he does, by stealing the enemy's fleet so they can never attack Lilliput. This doesn't satisfy the king because it wasn't a proper war. How can you have a war without sacrifice and heroism? And besides, since Gulliver robbed the enemy of their fleet, we now have no need for Admirals and everybody in the Navy is now out of a job.

A disgusted Gulliver finally manages to get off Lilliput but then lands on Brobdingnagia, a land of superstitious giants living a Medieval life style. (J. B. S. Haldane once wrote a famous essay explaining why giant humans were physically impossible.) At first they treat him well, an amusing toy for one of their gentle children, a pretty young girl named Glumdalclitch. But soon, after he beats the self-important king in a game of chess, and exposes the court magician as an ignoramus, he falls out of favor. He's smarter than they are. After all, he's a doctor and knows chemistry and science. The Brobdingnagians believe in witches and some of the stunts pulled by Gulliver -- treating the Queen's upset stomach with a mixture of opium and paragoric -- smack not just of elitism but of witchcraft. Besides, there is still that damme chess game. Who but a witch could check mate the King? So the Royal Court tries to burn him. Glumdalclitch makes it possible for him to escape.

Gulliver barely makes it back to England. We see him on the beach with his bride, who was swept up in his adventures. It's not a happy ending. Nobody finds satisfaction right in his own back yard, like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz." His wife asks what will happen to the Lilliputians and the benighted Brobdingnagians. "They'll always be with us," he admits with chagrin. "And what of Glumdalclitch", the truly benign and compassionate kid who looked after them? "Waiting to be born," answers Gulliver solemnly. I don't think Dean Swift would have been surprised to find that 280 years later, she's still waiting. Maybe, as I age, my emotional apparatus is becoming more primitive or something, but I found that final exchange rather moving.

There are many special visual effects but only two instances of Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animals, one a squirrel and the other a crocodile. This isn't a monster movie. Bernard Hermann's score doesn't sound much like that of a monster movie either -- no galumphing BROOP broop, BROOP broop. It echoes the light-hearted quality of the story itself and the composer only rarely lapses into his usual effects. I think it's the best score Hermann wrote for any of his fantasies.

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0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Going to War Over An Egg, 6 April 2008

Author: whpratt1 from United States

Never viewed this 1960 film dealing with Gulliver's travels and found it very enjoyable to view along with excellent photography. The story starts out with Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, (Kerwin Williams) having a fight with his girlfriend, Elizabeth, (June Thorburn) about his wanting to go aboard a ship as a doctor and she does not want him to leave. The ship sails and becomes shipwrecked and Gulliver finds himself in a completely different land where there are miniature people and he appears to them as a huge giant who must be captured and tied up. The rest of the story will hold your interest from the very beginning to the end and I almost forgot, a war was almost started over cutting an egg on the top and other people who cut their eggs on the bottom of the shell. Enjoy.

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4 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Perfect viewing for a rainy Saturday matinee or video fix, 31 March 2003
Author: george.schmidt (GSchmidt0609@aol.com) from fairview, nj

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?)

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