# The 3 Worlds of Gulliver
**The 3 Worlds of Gulliver** is a 1960 live-action fantasy adventure film directed by Jack Sher, produced by Charles H. Schneer, and starring Kerwin Mathews as Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, with special visual effects created by [Ray Harryhausen](https://www.edgepedia.org/ray-harryhausen). It adapts the first two voyages of [Jonathan Swift](https://www.edgepedia.org/jonathan-swift)'s 1726 novel *Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver*, sending its hero to the tiny kingdom of Lilliput, its rival Blefuscu, and the land of giants, Brobdingnag.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) It was the third feature from the Schneer-Harryhausen partnership and the first in color after *The 7th Voyage of Sinbad* (1958) to carry a new marketing label, Superdynamation.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) • [3](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/the3worldsofgulliver)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | New York opening 16 December 1960; Great Britain opening 19 December 1960; royal premiere 30 November 1960 at London's Odeon Marble Arch with Princess Margaret in attendance[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) |
| Source | Jonathan Swift's *Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver* (London, 1726); the script covers the first two of the novel's four voyages[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) |
| Principal cast | Kerwin Mathews (Dr. Lemuel Gulliver), June Thorburn (Elizabeth), Jo Morrow (Gwendolyn), Basil Sydney (Emperor of Lilliput), Gregoire Aslan (King Brobdingnag)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) |
| Key crew | Director Jack Sher; screenplay Arthur Ross and Jack Sher; producer Charles H. Schneer; music Bernard Herrmann; cinematography Wilkie Cooper[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) |
| Effects process | Superdynamation, a rebranding of Harryhausen's Dynamation, built on the Rank sodium (yellow) backing traveling-matte process; more than 200 trick photographic shots[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) |
| Filming | 13 July to 11 September 1959 at Pinewood Studios, London and Sevilla Studios, Madrid, with location work on the Costa Brava and other Spanish sites[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) |
| Reception | 89% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 9 critics; 6.4/10 on IMDb from about 3.4 thousand users[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_worlds_of_gulliver) • [5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053882/) |
## Spoilers
### Story and adaptation
The film opens in 1699 in Wapping, England, where Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, poor and discontented, signs on as ship's surgeon under Captain Pritchard to seek wealth and fame. His fiancée Elizabeth Whitley stows away aboard; after a storm sweeps Gulliver overboard, he washes ashore on Lilliput, where the tiny inhabitants bind him and their emperor declares him an enemy because he is different. Gulliver proves his benevolence by dispersing a rainstorm with a puff of breath, helps clear forests and scoop up fish with his hat, and begins building a boat to find Elizabeth. The emperor then pressures him to join a war against neighboring Blefuscu, a conflict the film roots in the Swiftian absurdity of a disagreement over the proper way to crack an egg.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER)
The second half reverses the scale: Gulliver reaches Brobdingnag, where he is a prisoner and plaything of giants, including King Brob (Gregoire Aslan) and the child Glumdalclitch (Sherri Alberoni).[6](https://gonewiththetwins.com/three-3-worlds-of-gulliver-1960/) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) The TCM account by film writer John M. Miller notes that the script was a simplified variation on Swift: it covered the first two voyages of the four in the novel, added a romance, and considerably softened the bitter satire, although a hint of it remains.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) A review in the BSECS Criticks series by Katie Lanning observes that the film's closing exchange, in which Gulliver tells Elizabeth that the giants and Lilliputians are "always with us... inside us," universalizes Swift's satire on British politics, before the film adds a hopeful answer of its own: "With love."[7](https://www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-reviews/spectacle-and-satire-american-film-adaptations-of-gullivers-travels/)
## Production
The project began under a different banner. Universal-International Pictures registered the title *Gulliver's Travels* in early 1958 and commissioned Jack Sher, Arthur Ross, and Sy Gomberg to write a screenplay; when Schneer began his own Swift project, Universal protested and the parties worked out a co-production arrangement with Schneer's Morningside Productions. The film's working title remained *Gulliver's Travels*.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) Columbia had first considered the property as a vehicle for [Danny Kaye](https://www.edgepedia.org/danny-kaye) or contract player [Jack Lemmon](https://www.edgepedia.org/jack-lemmon), but Schneer signed Kerwin Mathews, the star of *The 7th Voyage of Sinbad*.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver)
**Moving to England.** It was with this film that Harryhausen and Schneer moved their base of operations permanently to England. Harryhausen cited cheaper labor and the "unlimited and underused locations" in Spain and other European countries, and above all the Rank Film Laboratories' sodium backing process (also called yellow backing), a simplified matte technology that produced an instantaneous matte in a split-beam camera, where the blue backing used on *The 7th Voyage of Sinbad* required eight to ten steps.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) In a 1981 interview with *American Cinematographer*, Harryhausen explained that a story of big people and little people demands traveling mattes, that Hollywood had invested too heavily in rear projection to develop color traveling matte, and that Disney held the American franchise on the sodium system, so Rank's Pinewood facility was the practical choice.[8](https://theasc.com/article/ray-harryhausen-talks-about-his-cinematic-magic/)
[Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) ran from 13 July to 11 September 1959. Location shooting took place around [Costa Brava](https://www.edgepedia.org/costa-brava), Spain, with additional Spanish sites including the walled city of Avila, the mountains of Boca del Anzo, the aqueduct in Segovia, and the Palacio de Oriente in La Granga; Spanish interiors were filmed at Sevilla Studios in Madrid, and after eight weeks in Spain the company moved to [Pinewood Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/pinewood-studios) outside London, where the majority of interiors and all of Harryhausen's animation and process shots were done.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) Schneer publicly complained about British labor problems, reporting frequent stoppages and strikes.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER)
**The effects workload.** The script called for more than 300 potential matte shots, more than the budget allowed even with sodium backing, so Harryhausen also used forced perspective, an in-camera trick as old as movies; for the scene in which Lilliputians stand on a tower to present a medal to Gulliver, he placed Mathews in the foreground and the other actors far off in the distance and shot both at once with a wide-angle lens.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) According to studio publicity materials cited by the AFI Catalog, the visual effects combined perspective, inlay photography, optical variation, and split screen, with Harryhausen blending as many as five strips of film for a single sequence; he used more than 200 trick photographic shots and spent five months processing effects in the laboratory after principal photography ended.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) [Sony Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/sony-pictures)' synopsis notes that the story juxtaposes forty-foot giants with six-inch-tall people, and that the process was judged innovative enough to require a new name, Superdynamation.[3](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/the3worldsofgulliver)
**Stop motion.** Unlike most Harryhausen films, this one called for only two short animated sequences with ordinary animals, a squirrel and an alligator. For the squirrel model Harryhausen used a genuine taxidermy specimen into which his father built a metal armature; he later wrote that the squirrel sequence lacked excitement and that its sound was more a wheeze than a squeak, though he felt it had a charm the story needed. The alligator sequence, in which Gulliver fights the reptile with an improvised sword, was choreographed by Enzo Musumeci Greco, who had staged Mathews's skeleton duel in *The 7th Voyage of Sinbad*; Harryhausen established "contact" points between actor and model, such as the shield pulled from side to side in the creature's jaws.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) A technical analysis notes that in the crocodile fight Harryhausen animated a miniature sword blade to carry the rear-projected blade in front of the puppet for the necessary frames, adding to the sequence's believability.[9](https://www.takey.com/Thesis_387.pdf) Mathews's hardest shoot was the beach scene in which he awakens tied down by Lilliputians; he was tied down eight hours the first day, with his hair pinned to hold the "ropes," and could not move without pulling them out of the sand.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver)
## Music
[Bernard Herrmann](https://www.edgepedia.org/bernard-herrmann) composed the score, performed by the [London Symphony Orchestra](https://www.edgepedia.org/london-symphony-orchestra) under his direction.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) According to IMDb trivia, it was Herrmann's own favorite among the scores he wrote for Harryhausen and Schneer.[10](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053882/trivia/) The Variety reviewer praised the score highly, and retrospective critics have often singled it out; one wrote that for many fans Herrmann's fine score is the film's chief appeal.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_worlds_of_gulliver) Two songs, "Gentle Love" and "What a Wonderful, Wonderful Fellow Is Gulliver," were written by George Duning (music) and [Ned Washington](https://www.edgepedia.org/ned-washington) (lyrics).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER)
## Release and reception
The film premiered on 30 November 1960 at London's Odeon Marble Arch with Princess Margaret in attendance, opened in New York on 16 December 1960, and opened in Great Britain on 19 December 1960.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER) Columbia claimed copyright on 1 November 1960 (LP17388); the picture was shot in Eastman Color by Pathé with Westrex sound, and ran 98 to 100 minutes.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER)
Contemporary reviews split over the audience. Eugene Archer in *The New York Times* recommended the film only for children, noting that it omits most of the political satire that gives the book its adult fascination while preserving the adventure and fantasy that make the tale acceptable to the young. The Variety critic saw a broader aim, judging that enough of the book's caustic comment remained to give the film the stature of a worthwhile full-fledged family attraction rather than mere kiddie fare.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 89% Tomatometer from 9 reviews and a 55% Popcornmeter score from more than 250 audience ratings.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_worlds_of_gulliver)
**Merchandising and promotion.** A December 1960 Motion Picture Herald item reported that a twenty-five-foot helium balloon of Gulliver appeared in the [Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade](https://www.edgepedia.org/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade) and then toured nationally; Gulliver-themed products appeared on children's clothing and bedroom sets, and new hard- and softcover editions of the novel were issued to tie in with the film.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER)
## Unmade sequel and later versions
Screenwriter Arthur Ross prepared an outline for a sequel, *The New World of Gulliver*, which would have adapted Books III and IV of Swift's novel, depicting Gulliver and Elizabeth on the floating island of [Laputa](https://www.edgepedia.org/laputa) and in the land of the Houyhnhnms. Harryhausen felt the film would have been uncommercial and too complex to realize visually, and it was never made; a planned sequel titled *The New Travels of Master Gulliver* reported in February 1960 also never materialized.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER)
The film stands among a small number of American feature-length adaptations of Swift, alongside Dave Fleischer's animated *Gulliver's Travels* (1939), Charles Sturridge's 1996 miniseries, and Rob Letterman's 2010 comedy.[7](https://www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-reviews/spectacle-and-satire-american-film-adaptations-of-gullivers-travels/) Indicator released a 4K restoration from the original negative on Blu-ray in March 2021, with an isolated Herrmann score and interviews with the [Aardman Animations](https://www.edgepedia.org/aardman-animations) founders Peter Lord and Dave Sproxton.[11](https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/the-3-worlds-of-gulliver-bd)
## References
1. [The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53320-THE-3WORLDSOFGULLIVER)
2. [The Three Worlds of Gulliver, by John M. Miller, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/155284/the-three-worlds-of-gulliver)
3. [The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Sony Pictures Entertainment](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/the3worldsofgulliver)
4. [The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_worlds_of_gulliver)
5. [The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053882/)
6. [The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), Gone With The Twins, Mike Massie](https://gonewiththetwins.com/three-3-worlds-of-gulliver-1960/)
7. [Spectacle and Satire: American Film Adaptations of Gulliver's Travels, reviewed by Katie Lanning, BSECS Criticks](https://www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-reviews/spectacle-and-satire-american-film-adaptations-of-gullivers-travels/)
8. [Ray Harryhausen Talks About His Cinematic Magic, American Cinematographer](https://theasc.com/article/ray-harryhausen-talks-about-his-cinematic-magic/)
9. [Wilkie Cooper cinematography thesis analysis, takey.com](https://www.takey.com/Thesis_387.pdf)
10. [The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) Trivia, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053882/trivia/)
11. [The 3 Worlds of Gulliver Blu-ray, Indicator/Powerhouse Films](https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/the-3-worlds-of-gulliver-bd)
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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 › Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media › Films based on novels, novellas, and short fiction › Films based on 19th-century classics*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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