I did in first release and it was pretty impressive.
Oh Lord, you gave them eyes but they cannot see...
Yes. Saw both this and "How the West Was Won" in Cinerama when I was 9. I would say that TWWOTBG was at least as memorable as the HTWWW. I could hum the theme song to either many years later from memory.
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I did - the Cinerama on Talbot Street, Dublin, 1963.
I recall being a little underwhelmed. My dad, a cinema nut and a projectionist himself, had told me about this amazing, groundbreaking experience, and I was literally expecting to be practically surrounded by the screen. When I got there (for How The West Was Won, actually) I thought "It's just a very big, slightly curved screen" (in six year old language).
I loved HTWWW, but Brothers Grimm blew me away. The horror of the Singing Bone has stayed with me till this day - albeit he got his revenge (oops! Spoiler alert!) but he was KILLED!
It's one of those experiences that I can just close my eyes and I feel it again. Not just a movie, you walk out and it's forgotten. There was a FEEL and an atmosphere to this that has never left me.
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.
Yes, I saw this and How the West Was Won a couple of weeks ago - both in 3-strip Cinerama.
It was the first public screening of The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in Cinerama for 40 years.
I had not seen either film before, in any format. Both impressive, in different ways.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035369/
Wow, I didn't know they were reviving the format OR the movies.
Looking at the archive material, I love the way movies were such a big deal - there was a "roadshow" for movies like this, the advertising says things like "First time at these prices!" and I remember leaflets and publicity material in the foyer - you would quite often come away with a commemorative programme or some other souvenir (I recall a small plastic sword for The Sword In The Stone, with the title down the blade). I remember the intermission, which was always very dramatic, usually at a crucial point in the movie.
I get the impression people walk into a movie on a Friday night now not knowing what it's about, and caring less, then walk out having forgotten it already. The cinema seemed to be the centre of social life in those days and movies were revered.
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.
Yes. I saw this and HOW THE WEST WAS WON as a 3-4 year old at the Hoyts' Plaza Theatre in Melbourne (situated beneath the Hoyts' Regent, no longer in existence). Both looked terrific, as did THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, shown a few years later. The scene in which Laurence Harvey's character is feverish and imagines his storybook characters around his bed (including Russ Tamblyn reprising his role of Tom Thumb from an earlier George Pal movie) frightened me, giving me a few sleepless nights afterwards. We need a better transfer of this than the one on the LD release! Are you listening Warner Archive?
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I've been to Melbourne a couple of times Mike (my sister lives there) - whereabouts was the Regent? She lives in Cheltenham, and I went to the cinema near her house in a big shopping mall (went to see Son Of The Mask, rather anti-climactically!)
I saw a little bit of Brothers Grimm on TCM here in the UK recently - they really treat their movies shoddily. I think they just get the janitor to press play before he goes home. Anyway, that scene with all the characters in the bedroom looked really poor - the giant outside the bedroom window seemed to be in black and white, and there was the usual "three visible strips" problem. That was quite an iconic scene for me as a child too.
On a point of order, I often wondered how big their house must be, if the giant is looking through the window, King Kong style (working things out to scale by the size of his head).
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.
Hi. The Hoyts Regent cinema was in Collins St., just up from Swanston St. It was Hoyts' prestige theatre for their biggest releases from the '30's to the early '60's. Movies which played there included GONE WITH THE WIND, THE ROBE (first 'Scope movie), CAROUSEL, THE KING AND I, GIANT, THE MUSIC MAN etc. If you google The Argus, you will find a site called 'Trove' run by the National Library. You can view every copy of The Argus and find out which movie played where and when in Melbourne. Fascinating. NOW VOYAGER, made in 1942, took three years to reach Melbourne and played in the Plaza, which was underneath the Regent. The Regent was closed in the late '60's until the '80's. It was nearly torn down but the unions saved it. It has been refurbished and is now mainly used for live shows such as WICKED, SUNSET BOULEVARD etc., though GONE WITH THE WIND played there for it's 60th anniversary in 1999 if I recall correctly. Unless Warners restores BROTHERS GRIMM the way they did HOW THE WEST WAS WON (which is unlikely as WEST was a far bigger hit), we are always going to see the Cinerama "joins" in this movie and see the various 'panels' of film in various states of decay. I'd be happy with a full-width and maybe a SmileBox curved presentation (such as we got on the Blu Ray of HOW THE WEST WAS WON) with some tweaking of the image to make it look less faded and scratched etc.
shareSaw it in it's orignal three-strip version at the Cinerama Dome on September 29th. Russ Tamblyn gave a talk before the movie started. He brought a few friends with him, George Chakiris and Rita Moreno (Bernardo and Anita). I hadn't seen this film since 1962 when it was first released. Brought back wonderful memories.
shareI did, when I was five. We made a 3.5 hour drive to St. Louis so I could see this movie and then I had to be taken out of the theatre because I was crying so hard during The Singing Bone segment.
I did a better job with How The West Was Won. Still have the commemorative book sold in the lobby!
Yes, I saw it in Cinerama.I was 14, so could sit through the whole movie. Before I saw it again as an adult, I had vague rememberances of the Dancing Princess section, but none of the others.
sharei'm glad i'm not the only one who was frightened by that segment. i was five, also, when i saw TWWOTBG. i have memories of crying from fear at the terrible dragon. my mom took me out to the lobby for a few minutes. i must have settled down, though, because i also remember seeing the end of the film (and being a bit creeped out a bit by all the storybook characters surrounding the bed).
i told this story for years to my son about how frightened i was of the dragon. we rented the movie when he was nine or so. watching the effects of the fire-breathing dragon with modern eyes they are laughably bad. he's given me a hard time about it ever since.
I did. Our parents took us when I was 9 years old. I remember being awed by it. Never saw anything so wonderful. It's on TCM right now,and you can see the screen splits!
I am NOT Hepfelder
Sometimes life sucks; sometimes it sucks less
I saw it in Cinerama when I was 8 years old in 1964 at a Cinema in Pitt Steet, Sydney Australia. Cinerama was incredible, the screen so big and curved
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