The 3 Worlds of Gulliver is a 1960 American fantasy adventure film directed by Jack Sher and inspired by the Jonathan Swift novel Gulliver's Travels. It stars Kerwin Matthews as the title character, June Thorburn as Elizabeth, and child actress Sherry Alberoni as Glumdalclitch. The special effects were the work of Ray Harryhausen, and Bernard Herrmann composed the soundtrack. It is the second film Matthews, Harryhausen and Hermann have collaborated on after The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and the latter two would work on Jason and the Argonauts three years later.
In 1699, Dr. Lemuel Gulliver is an impoverished English surgeon who seeks riches and adventure as a ship's doctor on a voyage around the world. His fiancée Elizabeth strongly wishes for him to settle down, and the two quarrel. Gulliver embarks on the voyage and soon discovers that Elizabeth has stowed away aboard his ship to be near him. A storm erupts and sweeps him overboard. Gulliver is then washed ashore on Lilliput, a land of tiny humans who see him as a threatening giant. After helping the people of Lilliput against their enemies, Gulliver leaves on a small boat, only to end up in Brobdingnag, a land where he is the tiny one this time around.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- Annoying Arrows: Since he's a giant in Lilliput and Blefuscu, the tiny arrows shot by the people from these lands merely annoy Gulliver rather than hurt him.
- Bowdlerise: The satire aspects of the novel are largely absent, the special effects-heavy thrills and adventure crafted with Gulliver's two most well known voyages largely dominate the picture.
- Chroma Key: Used by Harryhausen to achieve some of the scale effects.
- Compressed Adaptation: Only the first (Lilliput) and second (Brobdingnag) travels of Gulliver were adapted here.
- Coup de Grâce: After stabbing the crocodile once in its throat with the sword-shaped brooch, which leaves the beast agonizing, Gulliver delivers a killing blow by stabbing it in the throat a second time.
- Fungus Humongous: Mushrooms are quite large from Gulliver's and Elizabeth's perspective when they're on Brobdingnag.
- Gentle Giant: Glumdalclitch is friendly towards Gulliver and Elizabeth, helps Gulliver with one of her braids when he's at the bottom of a squirrel's burrow, and eventually helps both of them to escape certain death.
- Gulliver Tie-Down: As usual, it happens when Gulliver is unconscious after being washed ashore on Lilliput.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Gulliver ends up killing the crocodile he's pitted against by stabbing it twice in the throat with a chest brooch shaped like a sword.
- Lilliputians:
- The Trope Namers, naturally.
- Gulliver and Elizabeth themselves when they're in Brobdingnag, which is populated by humans who are gigantic compared to them. They are housed in a doll palace.
- Medieval Morons: Brobdingnag is a medieval-looking kingdom, and the King and his Prime Minister don't believe Gulliver when he tries explaining his science to them, believing it to be witchcraft.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: The King of Brobdingnag's favorite caged animal is a crocodile that's still small compared to the King's size but relatively oversized compared to Gulliver. Gulliver ends up forced to fight it.
- Resized Vocals:
- Gulliver's voice is either booming when he's seen from the Lilliputians' perspective as a giant or higher pitched when he's tiny from the Brobdingnag giants' perspective.
- The voices of the Brobdingnag giants are also booming when in Gulliver's presence, although more inconsistently.
- Shield Bash: When Gulliver has to fight the crocodile, the Queen of Brobdingnag throws him a little shield (her way of thanking him since he helped curing her illness), and he uses it to bash the animal, to little effect.
- Stop Motion: The squirrel, and the crocodile Gulliver must fight near the end, are both stop motion creatures animated by Ray Harryhausen. The film is one of Harryhausen's lesser known works due to not having stop motion creatures outside those two (and not so spectacular at that), despite Harryhausen's other special effects fields (Chroma Key and Matte Shots especially) being put to great use here.
- Superweapon Surprise: The Lilliputians use Gulliver as one against their enemies of Blefuscu. Since he's a giant to them all, he goes to the port of Blefuscu and steals their fleet of war boats (which are model-size to him), leaving them unable to attack Lilliput.
- Woodland Creatures: When in the forest of Brobdingnag, Gulliver is attacked by an oversized (to him) squirrel that drags him into its underground burrow.
