Kerwin
Mathews, Jo Morrow, June Thorburn , Lee Patterson, Gregoire Aslan
.
The Three Worlds of Gulliver
is perhaps the least known of the Charles H. Schneer-Ray Harryhausen
collaborations of the 1960s, perhaps because it was withdrawn from
circulation so soon after its initial release. Kerwin Mathews, star
of the Schneer-Harryhausen classic Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1957),
stars as Jonathan Swift's globetrotting adventurer Lemuel Gulliver.
The first "world" is Lilliput, populated with teeny-tiny
people who are about to go to war because they can't agree over
which end of an egg to crack. Gulliver's second stop is Brobdignag,
where our hero is surrounded by giants. The third world is England,
where Gulliver is thrown into a lunatic asylum when he tries to
relate his astonishing adventures. Jo Morrow plays the thoroughly
dispensable love interest. The script, by director Jack Sher and
Arthur Ross, manages to retain a great deal of Swift's trenchant
satire without detracting from the film's "fun for all ages"
entertainment value. As always, Harryhausen's Dynamation special
effects are superb. A lilting, semihumorous musical score by Bernard
Herrmann is the icing on this cinematic cake. |