The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ]

THIS REVIEW FOR THE SMILEBOX RESTORATION BLU-RAY ISSUED IN USA 29 MARCH 2022Release of the digitally restored, “Smilebox” Cinerama How the West Was Won Blu-ray disc in 2008 was an absolute revelation. The grand western epic had not been seen in anything like its original form since early 1964 when It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World replaced it in Cinerama road show theaters nationwide. This new release of George Pal’s The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in Smilebox is even better. PERFECT, if I might say.Starting in 1952, Cinerama was one of several w I d e screen filming approaches designed to grab audiences being lost to that upstart, Television, and get them back into movie theaters. The idea was to show people something in the theater they were never going to see at home on narrow, grainy, black and white TV. Cinemascope, VistaVision, and ToddAO were other, more successful widescreen systems. Cinerama came first.Cinerama was never better than clunky. To achieve maximum width, Cinerama movies were shot with three synchronized cameras and beamed onto immense, curved, wide screens with three projectors that ran three rolls of film simultaneously. At its best Cinerama was visually amazing, but no matter what the techs did, the dividing lines between the three separate images were always faintly visible. Production designers did their best to align tall straight objects (trees, telephone poles, ship masts) on the lines to mask them out and sometimes succeeded.Only 9 movies were produced in the three-camera process between 1952 and ’62. Seven were documentary travelogues. Brothers Grimm was the first dramatic Cinerama production and How the West Was Won was the second and last. Both premiered in 1962. In 1964 Cinerama houses became a venue for productions shot single camera on 70MM filmstock. Mad, Mad World was the first of these. They were still called “Cinerama,” but the glory days were over.George Pal was a groundbreaking movie maker in the 1940s through the ‘70s. A Hungarian immigrant, he first won fame in Hollywood with his Puppetoons, amusing animated shorts featuring stop motion dolls rather than hand-drawn cartoon characters. A contemporary of animation wizard Ray Harryhausen, in 1950 Pal broke into producing and directing feature films. He was responsible for many science fiction classics of the era, including the 1953 War of the Worlds, When Worlds Collide, Conquest of Space, and The Time Machine. Pal includes a Puppetoon segment in Bothers Grimm, “The Cobbler and the Elves.” Here he manages to bring his doll characters perfectly to life one frame at a time shot with three cameras!Enough background trivia. I just wanted to say the new (March 2022) restored, Smilebox Blu-ray edition of Grimm is superb, possibly even flawless. The images are crystal clear, sharp, and colorful, and the Cinerama screen lines are incredibly nowhere to be seen. The Smileboxing adjusts perfectly for the original curve of the picture---straight lines run STRAIGHT right across the whole screen. When Grimm came off its Cinerama road show in late 1962, MGM crammed the movie into an ill-conceived “pan and scan” Cinemascope print for general theater distribution, losing almost a third of the picture from side to side. It was ugly, and the vivid colored lighting Pal used made it that much worse. For television and later home video release, the movie was further chopped down into a 1.3:1 aspect ratio print that left half the image on the cutting room floor. Good luck making sense of what was left.The new Smilebox restoration puts all of that right. It is breathtaking. This is the movie George Pal wanted us to see 60 years ago. Bravo! I have nothing but the utmost respect for the team who brought this together. I only hope they are already hard at work doing the same thing for How the West Was Won. Up until now it was my standard of excellence, but no more. They can make it even better, and I hope they do it soon!

Amazing just to be able to see it, and again when I choose.Top quality work to get this cinerama movie, which otherwise would just be a distant memory.

You can forget about all the cautionary reviews of foreign releases, warning of their terrible transfers. Whether you're an absolute purist and watch this in its inch-for-inch complete three screen coverage, bowtie resembling format, or as a recrafted widescreen production that only trims very insubstantial corners (I watched and enjoyed both) the restoration quality is without fault. As was intended through the original film shooting, the two transition seams between the three camaras contain the least emphasized elements of each scene, intentionally placing faces, or other critical elements where slight distortions can't affect them. You will notice these seams during the frantically wild carriage ride, and minimally at other times, but the same was true when viewing this movie in a dedicated Cinerama theater. While the effects do hark back to the stop motion glory days of George Pal, you can at last relive them in splendor equaling such 60s classics as "The War of the Worlds", "The Time Machine" and "7 Faces of Dr. Lao". You'll be treated to the humor of such notables as Jim Backus, Terry-Thomas and Buddy Hackett, the energy of Russ Tamblyn, and his spirited romance with young Yvette Mimieux, the antics and industry of the elves, and of course, woven all through these tales, the loving portrayals of the Grimm brothers by Laurence Harvey and Karlheinz Böhm. When I was a child, this was the absolute height of fantasy. The memory of the experience persisted all through my early adulthood, I often wondered when this movie might be restored, or if restoration wasn't possible, reshot and released. I have hovered over the unlicensed rerelease attempts so many times, always tempted to make a purchase. That risk is removed and there is no longer any excuse not to own this classic. I raised my own kids with a respectful acceptance for old ways, and so they might blink and wonder, why not CGI it all, but they still enjoy these well told tales, and might now, someday share them with children of their own.

Great film good service Great quality

film d'altri tempi ben girato effetti speciali da favola un tuffo nel passato

Todo magnífico

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.

Superschneller Versand. Artikelzustand top.DVD und Hülle ohne jegliche Gebrauchsspuren. DVD in anwählbarer englischer Sprache. Ist mit gutem Schulenglisch gut zu verstehen oder bildmäßig nachvollziehbar. Kinofilm in 3-Streifen-Cinerama-Technik.In der vorliegenden DVD hervorragend umgesetzt. Bildqualität meiner Meinung nach absolut o,k, Habe schon wesentlich schlechtere Umsetzungen gesehen.!! Tonqualität in Ordnung..Man bedenke der Original Kinofilm ist von 1962. Preis - Leistungsverhältnis für die DVD, war absolut top, da der Film so gut wie nicht oder nicht mehr auf dem Deutschen Markt zu bekommen ist. Aus Amerika, wenn überhaupt lieferbar, erheblich teurer. Für Kino-3Panel-Cinerama-Begeisterte, ein absolutes muß.!! Freue mich, diesen Film / DVD ergattert zu haben, da äußerst rar. !! Somit 5 Sterne und 2 Daumen hoch.!!