Gulliver’s Travels (1939)

Directed by Max Fleischer. Starring (voices) Pinto Colvig, Jack Mercer, Tedd Pierce, Sam Parker, Lovey Warren.

Second animated feature film from an American studio (after Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), loosely translated from the “Voyage to Lilliput” segment of Jonathan Swift’s best-known work. The Fleischer Studio “rubber hose” animation style and comic rhythms are as unmistakable as they are unaltered, even though Swift’s satire isn’t meant to be dominated by an excitable town crier called Gabby; the title character spends almost half the movie unconscious! Gulliver is as lackluster as the romance between Prince David and Princess Glory; they’re the only characters we can take seriously, though, so the movie ends up working best when it neither resembles the source material nor the grounded reality-within-fantasy. Inconsistently paced, especially for young viewers, but a couple of decent songs (“All’s Well”, “It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Day”) help stave off the doldrums. The character Gabby later featured in several short subjects from the same production company.

59/100