# Gulliver's Travels (1939 film)
**Gulliver's Travels** is a 1939 American animated musical fantasy film produced by [Fleischer Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/fleischer-studios) and released by [Paramount Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/paramount-pictures), adapting the Lilliput voyage of [Jonathan Swift](https://www.edgepedia.org/jonathan-swift)'s 1726 novel. Directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by his brother Max, it was the second cel-animated feature ever released, following Walt Disney's *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* (1937), and the first feature-length Technicolor animated film made outside the Disney studio.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | World premiere in Miami, Florida, 18 December 1939; general release 22 December 1939, a day after *Gone with the Wind* opened[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939) |
| Running time | 74 minutes per the AFI Catalog; TCM lists 76 minutes[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939) |
| Key personnel | Produced by Max Fleischer, directed by Dave Fleischer; screenplay by Dan Gordon, Cal Howard, Tedd Pierce, I. Sparber, and Edmond Seward; music by Victor Young[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) |
| Cost | A Motion Picture Daily news item put the budget at $700,000; TCM's accounts give a $500,000 budget that doubled, and a final negative cost of about $1.5 million[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/508327/gullivers-travels-1939) |
| Animation method | Gulliver was rotoscoped throughout from live-action footage of actor Sam Parker, who also voiced the character; the Lilliputians were conventionally animated[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) |
| Academy Awards | Two nominations: Victor Young for Best Original Score, and Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin for Best Original Song ("Faithful Forever")[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939) |
| Box office | Released to about fifty theaters for the 1939 Christmas season, it earned $3.27 million and ranked among the year's top attractions[4](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/gullivers-travels-1939/) • [5](https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/reawakening-the-giant-producer-sound-man-2899594.php) |
## Spoilers
### Story and adaptation
The film uses only the first part of Swift's novel, the voyage to Lilliput. On 5 November 1699 the English seaman Lemuel Gulliver is shipwrecked on the shore of Lilliput, a country of people so small that the tallest is no higher than Gulliver's boots. While Gulliver sleeps on the beach, King Little betroths his daughter, Princess Glory, to Prince David, son of King Bombo of neighboring Blefuscu. The two kings quarrel over which national song will be sung at the wedding, Little insisting on "Faithful" and Bombo on "Forever", and Bombo declares war just as the town crier Gabby announces that a giant lies on the beach. Gulliver eventually proposes combining the two songs, and after Prince David falls from a cliff deflecting a shot aimed at Gulliver, Bombo comes to his senses and the lovers are united.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS)
The adaptation departs sharply from its source. Swift's satire of human nature and of the travel-book genre is replaced by a love story and a war over wedding music, and the Lilliputians speak English, removing the communication problems of the novel.[4](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/gullivers-travels-1939/) • [6](https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/18220/3/And%20They%20Lived%20Happily%20Ever%20After.pdf) The two Fleischer brothers themselves disagreed over tone: Max wanted to keep Swift's satirical themes, while Dave wanted something lighter and more musical; the finished film is a compromise that preserves some satire.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939) The project was originally conceived as a Popeye vehicle, provisionally titled *Popeye's Travels*, before the idea was dropped in pre-production.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939) • [4](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/gullivers-travels-1939/)
## Production
The success of Disney's *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* in December 1937 changed Paramount's position on feature-length cartoons. [Adolph Zukor](https://www.edgepedia.org/adolph-zukor), Paramount's head, had previously seen no future in them, but he gave [Max Fleischer](https://www.edgepedia.org/max-fleischer) the green light with a deadline of Christmas 1939, about eighteen months from conception to release, against the more than three years Disney had spent on *Snow White*.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/508327/gullivers-travels-1939) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939)
The schedule was complicated by the studio's move from New York to Miami, Florida, which Paramount financed after union strife in New York. Production shuttled between the two locations while the studio kept meeting its contractual deadlines for [Betty Boop](https://www.edgepedia.org/betty-boop) and Popeye shorts. Hundreds of extra animators were hired, many from the West Coast, and 400 Miami art students were brought in after a crash course in animation. By the time the Miami studio was fully operational in 1938, Fleischer claimed the most advanced animation facility in the world, though much of the film was made during the transition.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/508327/gullivers-travels-1939) The staff eventually exceeded 700 people.[7](https://fleischerstudios.com/mrbug)
Modern sources cited by the AFI Catalog record that 500,000 celluloids and twelve tons of paint were used for the film's 115,700 composite scenes.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS)
## Rotoscoping and character design
The rotoscope, invented by Max Fleischer in 1915, projects live-action film frame by frame as a guide for drawing, and it was the film's defining technique. Gulliver's movements were traced from footage of actor Sam Parker, a Florida radio broadcaster who served as both the live-action model and the voice; Nelson Demorest had earlier worked on the character before Parker took over. The result is a figure whose lighting, clothing folds, and facial expressions are strikingly lifelike, though some critics found him jarring, so realistic that he reads as a special effect against the exaggerated, Popeye-style caricatures of the Lilliputians.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) • [8](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-running-pack) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/508327/gullivers-travels-1939)
The prince and princess were treated differently again. Rotoscoping was applied to Gulliver, Prince David, and Princess Glory, while the other characters were drawn in the free style of the Popeye cartoons; some late rotoscoping of the Prince, done under cost and time pressure, is generally regarded as the weakest animation in the film.[9](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/max-and-dave-fleischer/) • [8](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-running-pack) The opening shipwreck sequence goes for a realistic look, with a rotoscoped model ship and a dramatic sense of depth, before the style shifts to slapstick with the Lilliputians.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/508327/gullivers-travels-1939)
## Voice cast and music
The credited cast consists of two radio singers: Jessica Dragonette as the singing voice of Princess Glory and Lanny Ross as the singing voice of Prince David, the only animated voice work Ross ever did. Sam Parker (Gulliver), Livonia Warren (Princess Glory, speaking), and Cal Howard (Prince David, speaking) were uncredited, as were [Pinto Colvig](https://www.edgepedia.org/pinto-colvig) as Gabby and Jack Mercer, the voice of Popeye, as King Little.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939)
Victor Young composed and conducted the atmospheric score, and the songs came from two teams: "It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day" by Sammy Timberg, Al Neiburg, and Winston Sharples, and "Faithful Forever" by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin, whose music in the film splits into the disputed numbers "Faithful" and "Forever".[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS) • [10](https://www.intanibase.com/iad_entries/entry?shortID=3232) Both Young's score and "Faithful Forever" received Academy Award nominations.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939)
## Reception and aftermath
Critical response was divided along the Disney comparison. Variety called the film "an excellent job of animation, audience interest and all around showmanship... enjoyable as much for the elders as the youngsters". The New York Times disagreed, calling it "a fairy tale for children almost exclusively" and criticizing it for lacking the depth, subtlety, and freshness of the Disney films; Frank Nugent wrote that it lacked "the wit, the freshness, the gayety and sparkle, the subtlety, the characterization and, for that matter, the good drawing that are the trademarks of the Disney factory". The Motion Picture Herald found the Fleischer style readily identifiable, noting that "one might expect Popeye to peek around the corner at any moment".[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939) • [11](https://filmthreat.com/uncategorized/the-bootleg-files-gullivers-travels/)
Commercially the film succeeded. It earned $3.27 million, and one retrospective account places it as the No. 3 box-office attraction of 1939, behind *Gone with the Wind* and *The Wizard of Oz*.[4](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/gullivers-travels-1939/) • [5](https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/reawakening-the-giant-producer-sound-man-2899594.php) Paramount ordered a second feature, *[Mr. Bug Goes to Town](https://www.edgepedia.org/mr-bug-goes-to-town)* (1941).[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939) Assessments of the film's profitability differ: one animation-history account states that despite positive reviews and box-office success the studio did not recoup its production budget, and the Fleischer brothers were ousted from the studio after *Mr. Bug* fared poorly.[6](https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/18220/3/And%20They%20Lived%20Happily%20Ever%20After.pdf)
The film's later history was turbulent. Having fallen out of copyright, it circulated in a multitude of home-video releases, mostly from low-quality duplicated prints, with no official version available.[6](https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/18220/3/And%20They%20Lived%20Happily%20Ever%20After.pdf) [Animation](https://www.edgepedia.org/animation) historians have credited it with influence on later filmmakers including [Hayao Miyazaki](https://www.edgepedia.org/hayao-miyazaki), and it remains a standard classroom example when teaching how adaptations reorient a source text toward the values of their own time.[12](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1382007/1/391559.pdf) • [13](https://www.studiesinthenovel.org/content/gullivers-travels-adapted)
## References
1. [Gulliver's Travels (1939), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/5073-GULLIVER%27S-TRAVELS)
2. [Jeremy Arnold, "Gulliver's Travels (1939)", Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/499723/gullivers-travels-1939)
3. [Sean Axmaker, "Gulliver's Travels (1939)", Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/508327/gullivers-travels-1939)
4. [Gulliver's Travels (1939), Toronto Film Society film notes](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/gullivers-travels-1939/)
5. ["Reawakening the Giant", San Francisco Chronicle](https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/reawakening-the-giant-producer-sound-man-2899594.php)
6. ["And They Lived Happily Ever After", UAL Research Online](https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/18220/3/And%20They%20Lived%20Happily%20Ever%20After.pdf)
7. [Mr. Bug Goes to Town, Fleischer Studios](https://fleischerstudios.com/mrbug)
8. ["Running With the Pack", Animation World Network](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-running-pack)
9. [Mark Langer, "Max and Dave Fleischer", Film Comment](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/max-and-dave-fleischer/)
10. [Gulliver's Travels, Internet Animation Database](https://www.intanibase.com/iad_entries/entry?shortID=3232)
11. ["The Bootleg Files: Gulliver's Travels", Film Threat](https://filmthreat.com/uncategorized/the-bootleg-files-gullivers-travels/)
12. [Norman Klein discussion of Gulliver's Travels, UCL Discovery](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1382007/1/391559.pdf)
13. ["Gulliver's Travels Adapted", Studies in the Novel](https://www.studiesinthenovel.org/content/gullivers-travels-adapted)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Animated films by source material and subject › Films based on novels and books*
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