Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

mike48128 Cinerama also "projects" terribly on even 16x9 formats and the seams and colors mismatch on the 3 segments! An attempt at a "sweeping travelogue" with a thrilling train ride and beautiful "Bavaria" do not necessitate the elaborate Cinerama Process. Probably seen by more people in a more conventional format even in the 1960's as there were so few dedicated Cinerama theaters nationwide. Three good fairy tale segments, but I always felt there should have been four. Please don't ask me what other story it should have been? The first 20 minutes drags terribly and I can imagine little children squirming in their seats. The two George Pal segments ("The Cobbler and the Elves and The Singing Bone") are well-worth watching, but The Dancing Princess seems a bit less magical, although Russ Tamblin is an athletic dancer! Beautiful Barbara Eden is totally wasted here as a love interest for one of the Grimm Brothers. I just watched this on TCM in "Letterboxed Tinyvision". Not a fun experience! My grand-kids wouldn't enjoy it that way either! "tom thumb" has magical dancing shoes and "7 Faces of Dr. Lao" has a great sea serpent-dragon. Therefore, I don't need to own this film and, at this time, it's "out-of-print", anyway!

bbmtwist The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962) was the seventh of the eight films made in the Cinerama process and the first to be released since the last of the travelogues in 1958, a gap of four years.The travelogue motif had been used up: there were no more places in the world to visit worthy of a two hour running time. So MGM took a chance and set up the process for two all-star, narrative films, one released in 1962 (Grimm), the other (How The West Was Won) the following year in 1963.As back-up MGM filmed Mutiny On The Bounty in a competitive process, Ultra Panavision 70, a single strip process that was comparable in height and width to Cinerama, but lacking the overlapping seam problems and curved screen effects of the latter. Mutiny was released in 1962, the same year as Grimm. Eventually, MGM and the industry went with the Panavision process due to a number of advantages. It was less bulky, way less costly, theaters could more easily adapt to a single projector replacement than an elaborate three projector system that also required a specific curved screen to be installed. Most importantly close-ups and medium shots could return to the screen and actors could communicate facially with each other again (the Cinerama curved screen required actors to look up and to one side of the camera to be seen in the theater as looking at the audience and/or fellow actors).Grimm is a minor film, endearing and charming, but of no great importance. The performances all seem either wooden or theatrically exaggerated. One exception is Laurence Harvey, giving one of his most sympathetic and warmest interpretations as Wilhelm Grimm. He also gives a wonderful character performance as The Cobbler in The Cobbler and the Elves sequence. Special note is to be taken of Jim Backus, hilarious as the King in The Dancing Princess episode; Terry-Thomas, equally amusing as the evil knight in The Singing Bone episode, and the charming dancing of Russ Tamblyn and Yvette Mimieux in The Dancing Princess.The score is charming with a jaunty main theme and a catchy up beat number, Ah Oom!, for the elves to sing while making shoes.While the invisibility special effects (The Dancing Princess) are expertly done, the George Pal Puppetoon stop action effects for the elves in The Cobbler and the Elves and the dragon in The Singing Bone are dreadfully out of date and amateurish. Once we had digital visual effects in Jurassic Park, all the old stop action dinosaur films were antiquated, and such is the effect here. As such, these sequences will seem uninteresting to modern children after the age of seven or eight, thus limiting the appeal to a modern audience.There is only one thrill sequence for the Cinerama cameras, with a speeding coach towards the end of The Dancing Princess sequence. The opening scenes of Napoleonic battle seem to be an homage to Abel Gance, whose 1926 Napoleon used a three camera projection process for the final battle montage.The film has never been released on DVD in this country. As of this writing it is the only one of the Cinerama eight that has not. An old VHS manufacture was a scan and pan full screen version. Today your only chance to see this in its wide screen composition is a TCM broadcast. That print is fuzzy and the colors are washed out. This is badly in need of a digital clean up and restoration if it is to be released on DVD eventually.All in all, this is a charming film for parents with children up to the ages of eight years old. However, its lasting value is as an antique and as a Cinerama production.Although officially given a 135 minute running time, with Overture and Intermission music, the full print times out at 2 hours, 21 minutes, 25 seconds.It received four Oscar nominations: Cinematography, Art Direction, Costumes and Score, and won the Oscar for Costumes.Russ Tamblyn has the distinction of appearing in both MGM Cinerama films, the only actor in the MGM roster to have done so.

Boba_Fett1138 This is a well made entertaining little movie, told in a wonderful fairytale kind of way and with a great atmosphere, that makes you feel like a child again.This movie had all the potential to become a real great and classic children movie but unfortunately the movie makes some bad choices. The movie can be seen as 4 in one. It features 3 told fairy tales and then there is the storyline regarding the brothers Grimm themselves. The whole story of the brother Grimm is perhaps not the most interesting told one (especially not for children) and its not as wonderful and fairytale like as the actual fairy tales told in this movie. And the brothers Grimm have written some of the most marvelous and best known fairy tales but yet this movie decides to use some lesser known and less great fairy tales ('The Dancing Princess', 'The Cobbler and the Elves' and 'The Singing Bone'). In my opinion it makes the movie a bit of a missed opportunity. It's not a bad movie now but the whole movie gave the feeling it all could had been more entertaining, humorous filled and a bit shorter. The movie had easily could and also should had ended 15 minutes earlier. The movie now needlessly goes on for too long.The fairy tales are definitely the best told parts of the movie. They flow well, have a fun feeling and atmosphere all over it and all makes you forget your worries for a while. It's kept all perfectly childish and it ensures that it never ever becomes too scary for the young ones.The movie is filled with some wonderful and lovable characters and they're being played by some good actors. Laurence Harvey and Karlheinz Böhm aren't really believable as brothers, mostly because of their looks and very different accent of course but they're still of course good actors. Some supporting roles are there for Terry-Thomas, Buddy Hackett and Billy Barty among others.The movie was made filmed in 3-camera Cinerama. Cinerama is the trademarked name for a widescreen process which works by simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35 mm projectors onto a huge, deeply-curved screen. So a technique that works only in cinemas. On the small screen it just doesn't look good and it looks like the images on screen are cut in 3 parts but back then movies just weren't made for home release of course. The movie is good looking. Deliberately campy with its fairytale sequences and good and realistic in its 'real world' sequences. The sets are all nice (Oscar-nom) and so are the costumes (Oscar-win). The stop-motion effects in the movie are all fair looking but it's nothing too impressive really. Wasn't Ray Harryhausen available for this movie?Good entertainment, for the whole family.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

BijouBob8mm While it's been encouraging to see a number of George Pal's sci-fi and fantasy classics finally come to DVD, THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM is one of many still waiting to debut in the digital format (along with HOUDINI, ATLANTIS: THE LOST CONTINENT, a complete PUPPETOONS collection, etc..) With Terry Gilliam's new THE BROTHERS GRIMM film in theaters, it would seem like the timing would be perfect for such a release.Although available on VHS for some time, the tape doesn't do the film justice. GRIMM was shot using the three camera/three projector Cinarama process. With cast and crew members such as Russ Tamblyn (who provided commentary for Pal's TOM THUMB DVD) and stop-motion animator Jim Danforth still around, it would be nice to see Pal's fairy tale film get the deluxe DVD treatment, with the insight of surviving participants giving us a behind the scenes look at the making of the movie.