The 3 Worlds of Gulliver; First Men in the Moon

Long before Peter Jackson enlisted the aid of supercomputers and high-powered CAD programs to create thousands of nasty orcs in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, SFX pioneer Ray Harryhausen was working the leading edge of special effects in cinema with various mattes, optical illusions, and his trademark stop-motion miniaturization animation (or, as the publicity tag touted: "Superdynamation"). If you can overlook the fact that in Jonathan Swift's original early 18th century satire, Gulliver's wife was a) not a stowaway who accompanied our hero merely to provide a love interest, and b) wouldn't have been dressed like a Spanish gypsy in Wapping, England, circa 1699, anyhoo, then c) you'll find that Jack Sher's 1960 The 3 Worlds of Gulliver offers a reasonably fair adaptation of roughly the first half of the good doctor's adventures, retaining much of Swift's biting wit, as Gulliver (Kerwin Mathews) tries (often in vain) to help the narrow-minded and vertically-challenged Lilliputians in their heated battle with the neighboring giant Brobdingnagians over--follow me closely here--which end of a cooked egg should be cracked open before eating. Boasting surprisingly good special effects for its age (especially the matte work) showcased in a handsome transfer, the DVD also includes a pair of featurettes (a "making of" and "This Is Dynamation" short), as well as an hour-long look at Harryhausen's cinema magic, entitled "The Harryhausen Chronicles." Recommended. Ray Harryhausen's work is also on display in Nathan Juran's 1964 First Men in the Moon, adapted from H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic, which like "Gulliver" adds a love interest (Martha Hyer) to an originally boys-only Victorian trip to the moon. Lionel Jeffries stars as a scientist who--much like Fred MacMurray and flubber--creates a physics-confounding goop that negates gravitational pull, allowing Jeffries, co-pilot Edward Judd, and girlfriend Hyer to journey to the moon, where they encounter a human-ant-like race called the Selenites (much like Wells' devolved worker-class drone Morlocks in The Time Machine). While the special effects are not as notable here as in other Harryhausen efforts, the space footage is a noticeable improvement over the flat, static-looking pictures common in '50s sci-fi flicks, and there are a handful of inspired eye candy moments (I especially liked the Selenites' multi-story high giant tubes full of various hues of brightly colored water--although I've no idea what they actually did). Presented in anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 4.0 soundtrack, and backed with the same documentaries (minus the "making of") found on the "Gulliver" disc, this nostalgic sci-fi moonshot will appeal to SFX buffs and middle-aged viewers eager to revisit the cinematic wonders of their youth. Recommended. (R. Pitman)