The Film
Lesser-known than The House of Mouse but responsible for their share of enduring animation (Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman shorts), the Fleischer Studios gave the world the second feature-length animated film from an American studio, two years after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Gulliver's Travels was as beautiful as it was ambitious, a remarkably arduous production unlike anything we see today.
At once streamlined from the original book by Jonathan Swift (here the shipwrecked Lemuel Gulliver only visits a single location) and padded (a lot of music has been worked in, which led to Oscar nominations for Best Song and Best Score), the story is ceaselessly charming and briskly paced. The affable Gulliver washes ashore in Lilliput, a land populated by curiously tiny, petty little people, just as a royal wedding promises to unite two feuding kingdoms. Treachery and plenty of timeless sight gags ensue.
The Picture
The movie slipped into relative obscurity and subsequent disrepair over the past seventy years, and so an extensive restoration was undertaken for this first-ever Blu-ray release. Dirt was removed, damage was repaired, and colors were retimed to historically accurate reference levels. To create the new 1.78:1 1080p master, a proprietary frame-by-frame process was used, revealing never-before-seen picture information from the left and right sides while respecting the standard top and bottom safe action areas. Despite its 1.37:1 origins, Gulliver is very organically framed for widescreen, without any stretching.
That being said, Blu-ray technology was not thoroughly embraced here: There's no sound, no animation in the disc menus, and upon investigation the movie itself turns out to be encoded in MPEG-2, not the industry-standard AVC or VC-1 formats. (We recently posted an "Ask the Expert" column exploring the wonders of Blu-ray's next-generation audio and video codecs, among other topics.) MPEG-2 is the standard video codec for DVD, and while we can't say that no one uses it for Blu-ray… well, almost no one uses it for Blu-ray.
In its defense, Gulliver employs an exceptionally high-bitrate MPEG-2, routinely high 20s to well over 30 megabits per second. Fast action is solid and a newfound panache enlivens the gorgeous hand-drawn, hand-painted artwork, with minute differences evident as we progress from cel to cel. Some haloing and ghosting compromise the generally soft image, and weird coloration artifacting can taint subtly gradated backgrounds with a shifting splotchiness. Some dirt and film shudder remain.
The Sound
I'm guessing that the three soundtrack options here are identical to those on the DVD. The Blu-ray defaults to an enhanced Dolby Digital 2.0, and a more elaborate Dolby Digital 5.1 remix is also provided. New effects have definitely been recorded and added for these two new tracks--footsteps and the like--which are a bit too pronounced and can sometimes be distracting. The 5.1 is presented at 48 kHz/448 kbps while the 2.0 and a restored Dolby Digital two-channel mono proffering of the original soundtrack spec out at 48 kHz/384 kbps. Dialogue is always clear, although the limitations of the original 1930s recording can show through as a tinny hollowness. Some slight directional transition can be heard, as when a mob trots across a bridge overhead, with some respectable rear-channel use to give it a whole-room feel. While the original mono is surprisingly good, the enhanced options offer greater fullness overall.
The Extras
Bonuses consist of two cartoons starring Gabby, a goofy little character from the movie who I believe actually has more screen time than Gulliver himself. "Swing Cleaning" and "King for a Day" were apparently culled from his deleted scenes but could stand alone as their own shorts, but for the abrupt beginning and ending in the absence of opening/closing credits. There's also the vintage documentary "The Making of a Cartoon," about the studios' work on a Popeye adventure, again with no opening title or closing credits. Each runs about six minutes and has been restored, presented here in MPEG-2 format.
Final Thoughts
Gulliver's Travels is a wonderful piece of old-school animation, a TV staple of my youth. I'd certainly never seen it widescreen or so polished as on this Blu-ray, although I can't help but wish that the final step had been taken to author it to full high-definition standards.
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