Gulliver's Travels
Based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Swift and built around the Lilliput and Blefuscu episode. It was made partly in live action and partly animated.
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- Cast:
- Richard Harris , Catherine Schell , Meredith Edwards , Julian Glover , Denise Bryer , Michael Bates , Bessie Love
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Reviews
Waste of time
Don't listen to the negative reviews
Awesome Movie
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
This genuinely strange endeavor is a minor technical achievement for its time, but suffers from an unexciting, talky script. Richard Harris does an admirable job reacting to people that aren't really there. Recommended mostly to kids with warped tastes, or adults in need of a weird trip (the fact that "real" miniatures and animated things seem to be interchangeable in Lilliput only enhances the weirdness). **1/2 out of 4.
I had watched this on Italian TV as a kid and recall being fond of it – in view of its mixing live-action with animation; however, it was universally panned at the time…and, catching up with it again after all these years, I have to admit that the critics were right! What must have seemed wondrous to a child's eyes is actually very poorly done, not to mention boring for a fantasy-adventure; fatally, both star (ex-'Angry Young Man' Richard Harris) and director (action expert Hunt) are ill-suited to the material! At least, Michel Legrand's score (with lyrics provided by scriptwriter Don Black) is serviceable – if not exactly inspired. By the way, a number of well-known personalities are featured among the voice artists on this British-Belgian co-production (Julian Glover, Bessie Love, Murray Melvin, Robert Rietty, Vladek Sheybal, Graham Stark and, this being his last film work, Michael Bates).While the essential plot points of Jonathan Swift's classic novel ('giant' Gulliver becomes the pawn in a war between the little people of two neighboring countries and, on escaping, ends up in a land of real giants) do emerge here, it's done on a strictly kiddie level (with stereotyped characters though, thankfully, little intrusion of the comic/romantic variety) – which renders the whole venture somewhat pointless, outside of its intrinsically experimental nature, since Max and Dave Fleischer had already done a splendid feature-length cartoon version of the book way back in 1939!
Only covers Gulliver's time in Lilliput. My brother and i first saw this on TV as a Nickelodeon Special Delivery. Luckily we had it recorded, and we watched it many times over the years. However, on review, it had it's moments even if it got a little tedious at times. BUT, there are cute little songs that are not in any other versions of Gulliver. That's what will stick with you. the song "Politics" is really funny. Such a great commentary on how arbitrary the art of politics really is. But, if you want a good representation of the book, i would suggest another version. Kids would be amused though.
The originality, strangeness, and mild humor that turned Jonathan Swift's novel, Gulliver's Travels into a classic is not captured at all in this poorly made adaptation of the novel. Please, save the risk of runing the book, and avoid watching this film. Trust me.