MGM and the Cinerama corporation produced this widescreen film as a follow up to the Cinerama spectacular How The West Was Won. George Pal produced and directed the fantasy segments while Henry Levin shot the rather boring story of the brothers Grimm played by Laurence Harvey and Karl Bohm who are struggling to find acceptance as chroniclers of traditional German fairy tales.
This is a Cinerama film in every way with the usual gimmicks of enveloping the viewer's vision with shots of carriages racing down roads, tumbling down mountains and dizzying views of canyons making the viewer think he/she was about to fall into one.
Frankly the story is not so hot and George Pal has actually made better films but this is certainly an amazing viewing experience especially in the restored Blu-Ray version being released by Warner Brothers.
The film has a great cast, it just doesn't give them much of a story to tie the admittedly charming and entertaining fantasy sequences together. The first sequence with the dancing princess has the athletic Russ Tamblyn and the beautiful Yvette Mimieux in a large scale musical number. Tamblyn is a great dancer and acrobat, Yvette Mimieux is easy on the eyes but not so hot as a dancer.
The 2nd sequence is probably the best with George Pal's Puppetoons and the 3rd fantasy story has Terry Thomas and Buddy Hackett battling a dragon and Hackett battling a very poor English accent.
Overall this is an enjoyable film, however it could have been a better one .
Written by Charles Beaumont, William Roberts and David P. Harmon. The running time is 135 minutes.
The new Blu Ray presentation is very impressive.
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