The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver (1960)
I realize that I have no one to blame but myself with this movie. After all, the warning signs were readily apparent right from the cover of the DVD. It shows this guy in his short pants and white stockings sitting cross-legged delicately holding a teeny-tiny barrel up to his pursed lips like he was sniffing it to gauge its bouquet or something. Little did I know that for most of the first part of the movie, Gulliver would just be sitting around listening to the Lilliputians whine about their egg war. I know it's supposed to be a pointless argument, because war is pointless or whatever liberal slop Swift was trying to serve up, but it's just so boring to sit through.
If I was Gulliver, I would have gotten me a good pair Levis and Doc Martins and stomped all these little dorks into Lilliputian-sized grease spots like I was Infra-Man or something. That would have been a movie I wouldn't mind rewinding now and again. I would also have Gulliver throw out witty catch phrases as he ran these midgets down and squashed them. Stuff like, "oh, that's going to leave a mark" and "did I do that?" - that sort of thing.
But of course all Gulliver did was sit around, periodically moaning about how he had to get his boat finished so he could sail off and find his fiancee, while the Lilliputians stood around whining about how Gulliver had to help them defeat the other group of little people across the channel (these other people must have represented the French because they seemed a little dirtier and their leader had bad teeth - or does that make him British?).
Gulliver is a simple doctor who just wants to help people (and make a lot money, too!), but all his patients pay him in chickens and cabbages. Obviously, he wouldn't be complaining so much if they were paying him in sexual favors or stock tips or something, but you know what cabbage does to his innards, so this isn't exactly a job that is going to keep the missus happy.
In fact, his woman, Elizabeth, is all about buying some broke down cottage in the bad part of town, but once Gulliver is there, he manages to bust up the door and she falls down on her face and Gulliver determines that there is no way he's going to have his old lady live in a rat trap like that, so he does what any self respecting male with a ball and chain would do in that situation. He signs up for a sea voyage of fun and frivolity to the East Indies!
Somehow sailing over there without his woman is going to make him rich and important, but no sooner is Gulliver at sea whining about how the boat constantly rocks back and forth, no doubt interfering with his frequent tea breaks, than a stowaway is discovered. She's a blonde little trollop who goes by the name of Elizabeth! Wah, wah, wah, waaaaah! As you might imagine, once he sees that the love of his life is on the boat, he promptly gets himself washed overboard. Can you say "suicide attempt"?
Gulliver gets washed up on shore and finds himself in Lilliput, a land of tiny people. You get your big scene where he's all tied up in that midget bondage stuff that Brits of that time period seem to fancy so much and eventually they let him up and he discovers that they have this egg dispute with a group of other little people and I immediately start reading the liner notes that came with the DVD out of desperate attempt to remain entertained. Filmed in Spain? Really? 200 special effects shots? Fascinating!
One of the irritating things about this part of the movie is that they simulate Gulliver being really big by having his voice deepened and somehow this manages to drain any emotion from the voice, so it's like listening to the HAL 9000 or something. Kerwin Matthews obviously was no master thespian (this was his last role of any note), but without his real voice, things are made even worse and you quickly cease to care about Gulliver and his plight.
After trying to make Lilliput a paradise by clearing away some forest and destroying its opponent's navy, Gulliver gets fed up with Lilliput, admits that he never even liked eggs and rows away in his rowboat. He makes landfall somewhere else and now the tables are turned and he turns out to be the little guy in a world of giants. Some little (for giants anyway) girl scoops him up and takes him back to the palace of the king and there waiting for him is Elizabeth! Is she stalking him or something?
She and Gulliver are both seen as prized possessions by the king (I guess little people are the fad of the moment in this kingdom, having recently supplanted the likes of pogs and pet rocks) and they get hooked up with a sweet little doll house for them to live in. Of course the little lady loves living in her Barbie Dreamhouse and Gulliver seems okay with it until he makes the king mad at him by beating him at chess. It is quickly determined that Gulliver must be some type of witch and the palace sorcerer spends a bunch of the last part of the movie trying to prove that Gulliver is a witch.
This is done mainly through having Gulliver swim in a bunch of liquid that will turn him blue if he is a witch. With his knowledge of chemistry, Gulliver is able to pull the old switcheroo on this quack and rigs up so the water turns him red. Of course, then he proudly brags about how he used his knowledge of chemistry to pull the old switcheroo and they figure he must be a witch because of that! Yeah, you weren't asking for that one, Gulliver.
Gulliver gets himself put on trial and this involves him fighting one of those stop motion crocodiles that Ray Harryhausen keeps in his backyard swimming pool. Gulliver defeats him, but the king still wants Gulliver executed, so Gulliver and his woman escape and end up floating down stream in a child's sewing basket.
I thought it showed a lot of moxie by the film makers to end a movie that was so difficult to sit through, with what was probably the worst chase scene you've ever had the displeasure to witness. Watching these giants trying to chase a basket that is lazily floating down a stream, but never ever able to catch up with it, will turn your stomach. At one point they desperately hurl rocks down at the basket from a bridge, but no one ever thinks of just scurrying down the banks, running into the stream and catching it. Oh and this is one of those streams that immediately flows into the Atlantic Ocean.
The acting in this one leaves much to be desired, particularly during the Lilliput segment where everyone seems to have been herded off the street and onto the set the same day, their lines being delivered as poorly as that freebie newspaper that usually finds its way onto the roof of my trailer every Wednesday. The satire is at times painfully obvious and Kerwin Matthews is such a non presence in the proceedings that you wonder how much better the movie would have been had any of the real actors who were offered the part, but turned it down, had been in it. The highlight of the film was when a squirrel dumped a giant nut on Gulliver's head.