The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

Timeless magic

I recall seeing in Cinerama The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm when it was originally released in circa 1962. Reading the reviews of previous disc releases I was put off buying a copy by the reports of very poor picture quality. A friend who owned this latest version highly recommended that I consider buying a copy. I ordered a copy from Amazon Uk sold by Amazon US and it took eight days to arrive by UK tracked post. That evening I projected the film on my Epson 4K projector and Panasonic 820 UHD Player. The visuals on my screen from this restored version were stunning and you could easily at times have thought that you were watching a 4K disc. I watched the “Smilebox" format, which replicates the curved Cinerama experience and if you sit fairly close to ones screen you could almost imagine you were back in 1960’s watching it in three panel Cinerama. The only difference is that this time only occasionally can you see a slight hint of the joints between the three panels. To fully appreciate this new version can I suggest if you buy the disc you first watch on Disc Two the excellent award-winning documentary extra ‘The Restoration Featurette’ which shows how using the latest state of the art technology the badly deteriorated original elements of the film have been restored to look better now than they did on its original release. One can appreciate the lengthy process that erased decades of wear and tear including mould, dirt, and warping and colour correcting. Also shown are the techniques used to seamlessly join all three separate image panels together and create “Smilebox” format. Most of you Cinerama fans will remember how the horizons are often distorted caused by the use of three cameras- this to has been corrected in this version. The sound has also had a full restoration makeover. Disc One is the Widescreen version. This is definitely an amazing restoration and example of what can now be achieved and highly recommended to all you Cinerama Fans.

We have got the DVD import, ok quality, but at last a descent and excellent copy, not one version but two, widescreen and smile box.Beautifully restored and extras. Brought back memories when when my late Pop`s took me to see it in a tent.Old school animation with the Grimm story aswell. Watched it same day as delivery wonderful, smile box version first, to me better than 3D. Restoration wonderful and extras that are perfect for this release, especially the choice of songs.I can`t say that our grandchildren will sit through it but that is their loss. As said old school film the way people of a certain generation watched and enjoyed.One gripe, before ordering, had to find out about region coding elsewhere on web, nothing on Amazon so for information it is region free.If anybody remembers this film in Cinerama and watched it in that format buy this release and enjoy.

Very good

"The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" was one of only two feature length films made in Cinerama. We'll say TRUE Cinerama because there were other later movies that had the Cinerama tag but weren't made in the three strip system like this and "How the West Was Won."Anyone who has paid attention in Geography classes in school will know that you can't represent the surface of a spherical Earth on a flat sheet of paper without significant distortion. Similarly it's not ideal to try to transfer a film made for a deeply curved screen onto a flat rectangle without some distortion. The middle panel is further from the viewer than the sides in a true Cinerama presentation. When it's flattened out people moving from one side of the screen to the other appear to get larger as they cross the centre and smaller again as they reach the other side. So the presentation of this film on DVD is never going to be perfect.Cinerama was really a very bulky and expensive system. On filming a three lensed camera was used, one in the middle and one on either side, placed at 90 degrees to it. In projection in a specially equipped cinema three projectors were involved. One at the back of the auditiorium and the others located at the sides, each projecting a third of the picture, their beams crossing in the centre, on to a semi circular screen. The three strips of film were synchronised to run together. The problem then was that there were two vertical lines in the picture caused by the edges of the panels where they joined.The aim of Cinerama was bigness rather than extra width. The entire picture was much larger than that given by standard anamorphic 35mm film prints and therefore picture quality was better because of the larger nagatives involved. Each panel was higher than it was wide so the width may not be as wide as expected. The aspect ratio of Cinerama was 2.58:1 almost exactly the same as early Cinemascope at 2.55:1. Cinemascope was subsequently reduced to 2.35:1 to allow stereophonic soundtracks on the side of the film."The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" does display distortion, most noticeably in the sequence where the woodsman dances with the princess and any time the camera is panning, which isn't very often. The panel lines are for the most part very well hidden. In one or two places it is possible to see them quite clearly and sometimes one panel seems to have faded more than the other two but on the whole it's difficult to see the joins.The picture and sound quality on this release are not the best, the colours lack lustre and the sound is a little fuzzy. What is good quality is a matter of opinion, some people will accept what others will not. This is not DVD quality as we have come to expect it but personally I find it quite watchable and I enjoyed the movie. Cinerama was a short lived system and, "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" and "How the West was Won." are cinematic curios. Many scenes were intended to show off the new system, the prolonged carriage ride in WWOTBG and the train sequence in HTWWW, for instance. The filming style is noticeably different. The camera is mostly static and the characters move around in a frame that seems too big for them. There is certainly a sense of grandeur and the experience of seeing Cinerama in a properly equipped cinema at the time must have been breathtaking, I wish I'd seen it.This film really does deserve a full makeover but this Italian DVD is certainly better than nothing. I always wonder what the quality will be like on discs from other countries but this one, although could be better, is OK. It will play in English and without subtitles but it's not the default, you have to select these options first. Select, "Inglese 2.0" for the audio and "Disattiva sottotitoli" to remove subtitles The aspect ratio is about 2.55:1 which is as near as dammit to the original.

I just wish they would release the BlueRay version of this or at least so it can be watched in high resolution. This copy will certainly do for the time being as before this it was only available on VHS I think? Anyway the movie itself is an absolute Golden nugget. It is a gem and comes from many a persons childhood memories, those that can recall that far. The quality in the film making to this great collection of stories, is a very warm cosy sort of movie you might want to watch on a cold blustery or snowy, raining, windy night in front of that beautiful coal or log fire, in fact the snow collects in the corner panes of the outside window hah Its Christmas.. Well we can have fantasy. Absolutely love this movie. The quality of this version is not great and the centre lines are irritating at times, But, after saying that for a movie not available In any better quality, Its better then nothing.