Gulliver's Travels (1939)

The Fleischer Studios 'Gulliver's Travels' is making me reassess Flesicher Studios 'Mr. Bug Goes to Town', maybe it wasn't so bad. Distributed by Paramount this was the second feature length animated film ever released, the first being 'Snow White' whose influence is unmistakable here, instead of seven dwarfs we have hundreds. Gulliver is a logical and conveniently public domain choice to make into an early animated feature, at last the story can be told visually in higher technical quality then ever available before. Gulliver himself is done in rotoscoping, which looks noticeably off now but was doubtless quite effective at the time. The Lilliputions and the neighboring Blefuscuians are done in an overly cutesy animation style of which I am not a fan. The music here not of the quality of the later 'Bugsville' movie, and the story also made lite and plays out even slower, at just 76 minutes it still feels maybe a little too long. But its the visuals here that are meant to be the principal attraction, and they were revolutionary, while everything else is just in there service. **