Fleischer Classics Featuring Gulliver's Travels Blu-ray Review
A giant in the annals of animation.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 7, 2014
When Walt Disney offered Richard Fleischer the job of directing Disney's first live action special effects spectacular
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, some wags in Hollywood saw the gesture as a sort of olive branch proffered to a
family that had once been Disney's major (and in fact
only) competition back in the nascent early days of the
Mouse House. It's almost hard to realize that there was a time when Disney (either the man or his eponymous studio)
wasn't
Disney, so to speak, but just another dreamer without much of a factory. There were several other
impressive animators working at around the same time Disney was starting up what would become one of the giants of
the entertainment industry, let alone the niche of animation, and chief among those were the Fleischer Brothers, Max
(Richard's father) and Dave. The Fleischers' first work actually predates Disney's, and Max held the patent for one of
early animation's
most notable achievements, the Rotoscope. The Fleischers, like Disney himself, concentrated exclusively on shorts for
the early part of their career, but things changed dramatically in 1937 when Disney brought out what was considered
one of the all time risks the then still relatively young film industry had witnessed, a full length animated feature by the
name of
Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs. The rest, as they say, is history, and with the overwhelming success of that film, other
studios wanted to jump on the animated bandwagon. The Fleischers had actually been eager to make a feature length
cartoon for several years, but their distributor Paramount wasn't keen on the idea—until they saw the box office receipts
from the Disney outing. Then Paramount wasn't just interested, they were actually a bit
frantic and urged the
Fleischers to get a full length film into theaters for the holiday season of 1939, a relatively short timeline for such an
ambitious project. And thus was
Gulliver's Travels born.
There's little doubt that the shadow of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs looms rather large over much of this
Gulliver's Travels, and not just because there's a giant human looming over diminutive elf like creatures. There's
really only
one travel in the film, Gulliver's adventures in the magical land of Lilliput, where he's discovered by
town
crier Gabby (who would go on to an extracurricular life of his own in several Fleischer shorts, some of which are also
included on this Blu-ray). Gulliver awakens the next day to find himself in the middle of an incipient war between King
Little
of Lilliput and King Bombo of neighboring Blefuscu, who have come to blows over the appropriate music to play at the
impending marriage of their children.
The film is filled with sprightly characters who probably owe more than a mere debt of gratitude to Disney, and the love
affair between the kings' kids is obviously modeled on Snow and her Prince. But in other ways,
Gulliver's Travels
is
definitely an artistic triumph on its own merits. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the gorgeously rotoscoped
animation
of Gulliver himself, who is manifestly more "real" looking than the intentionally cartoonish Lilliputians. The fluidity of the
animation is certainly at least the equal of anything Disney achieved in this general era, and the song score (while again
obviously influenced by the success of
Snow White's music) is quite appealing as well.
While the bulk of the interest in this release will probably surround
Gulliver's Travels, it's notable that
Thunderbean has also offered high definition presentations of several other outstanding Fleischer shorts, bridging two
decades from 1921 to 1941. While some of these are more endearing than others, their inclusion is a commendable
effort to preserve the legacy of an often strangely underappreciated force in early American animation.
Fleischer Classics Featuring Gulliver's Travels Blu-ray, Video Quality
Fleischer Classics featuring Gulliver's Travels is presented on Blu-ray by Thunderbean Animation with an AVC
encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1 (the release is hard matted with rounded corners, reproducing its original theatrical
exhibition). Thunderbean is the brainchild of Steve Stanchfield, who did a Kickstarter-esque
campaign to fund this restoration, which he painstakingly undertook without a huge staff (the credits list three total people
handling digital cleanup, restoration and editing, with one more person listed as the telecine operator). This transfer was
srouced from a variety of 35mm elements, though Stanchfield mentions in his interesting liner notes that the bulk of the
release stems from a 1957 print, though this print evidently had replacement footage from another print to replace damaged
sections. Four other prints were utilized for various segments as well. The results here are quite beautiful, though there
are some minor though noticeable color space variations as well as density issues that occasionally crop up. However,
Stanchfield is to be roundly applauded for having attempted to clean up his source elements without digitally tweaking
things to the point that they no longer resemble film (we have another
Max Fleischer's Gulliver's Travels release if we want to go that
lamentable route). While some may wish for a brighter overall ambience, the organic look
of this transfer is probably its strongest asset, aided by a largely accurate accounting of lush Technicolor hues (the blues are
especially impressive). The image retains the painterly depth that was the Fleischers' hallmark. There are still manifold
scratches and minor imperfections that can be seen, but this is truly a
remarkable achievement by a "sole proprietor" that should put any number of niche labels on notice as to what someone
who really
cares about what they're doing can offer to classic film aficionados. While a transfer from an interpositive
or negative would have probably culled more pleasing results, the fact that this looks as wonderful as it does sourced from a
"mere" print (or set of prints) is an astounding accomplishment.
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