The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960)

Director: Jack Sher
Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Jo Morrow, Hune Thorburn

Synopsis:
Doctor Lemuel Gulliver seeks his fortune by serving on a ship bound for the East Indies, but after being swept overboard during a storm, he finds himself transported to a strange land.

Impressions:
I remember not liking Gulliver's Travels when I read it back in my school days. I haven't tried giving it another shot since then, so I can't say if that unfavorable opinion would still hold true. I will say that this movie didn't do much for me. There are some decent camera tricks for the Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians and a couple neat little Harryhausen critters and I suppose it could pass for children's entertainment, but that's about it. I will say that Kerwin Mathews was a little better in this than some of the other movies I've seen him in, which indicates to me that his acting problems are more a matter of poor scripts and poor direction. Maybe if he hadn't been typecast in the fable action guy role, he could've showed some real acting chops. (He does at least do the action thing well enough.) It's not terrible but it's not great either. You could do worse.

Also, while the movie's called The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, it skips over the Houyhnhnms entirely. (Is the regular world supposed to be one of the three?) I also didn't like how they brought Elizabeth to Brobdignag for the sake of a romantic plotline as one of the whole points of the story was Gulliver's progressive alienation from humanity. It kinda defeats the point to have his girl by his side to ground him.

Rating:
50/50