Smileboxed THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM -- Will it ever make it to Bluray? (1 Viewer)

[NY2LA]

I hate westerns and Bros grimm was my favourite cinerama film seen-saw them all when first originally released.Have a dvd of the film made from a laser disc many years ago by someone

i had a nice talk with someone much younger than me who held this movie in a special regard, and he was thinking the same thing about wanting to have a copy of Grimm on DVD. The best legit thing that came up was buying the LD and making one's own personal copy of it, which I believe is legal. Not being tech savvy best that I could do is DVR it from TCM and not erase it until my DVR had to be replaced... and then there is that petition.

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by Timothy E /t/290862/smileboxed-the-wonderful-world-of-the-brothers-grimm-will-it-ever-make-it-to-bluray/510#post_3982082
Consider what is more popular now, Westerns or fairy tales? I love my Westerns but fairy tales are always in fashion whereas Westerns fluctuate in popularity.
There are 2 fairly successful network TV series running at the same time, both beginning their second seasons right now, and both based on fairy tales (Grimm on NBC and Once Upon A Time on ABC).

What about all the Fairy Tale movies out, MIRROR, MIRROR, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN and soon HANSEL AND GRETEL-WITCH HUNTERS. Let alone WHV releasing a Blu-ray of Hans Christian Anderson. For the next couple of years fairy tales will be big business.

 

[RolandL]

I hate westerns and Bros grimm was my favourite cinerama film seen-saw them all when first originally released.Have a dvd of the film made from a laser disc many years ago by someone

The version on TCM is a lot better - http://cineramahistory.com/wwotbgld.htm

 

[Adam_S]

I caught Grimm on Saurday as well. The breakdown at the beginning was only a couple minutes to fix, and seemed to be a misalignment issue. I definitely spotted burn marks on the curtain when we came back from intermission, and that breakdown lasted at least 45 minutes. I almost had to leave when it finally came back up. They brought it up the first time when the right panel (left projector) was off by about 40 frames (just an eyeball estimate at how off the sync was,as an editor I see bad sync a lot), I figured they'd just let it go and fix it at the reel change, but they shut it down again, hence the 45 minute breakdown. I happened to be sitting right in front of Russ Tamblyn, and I overheard him mention that he also plays Tom Thumb at the very end of the film. Everyone in the audience seemed to enjoy the production, despite it being a mostly terrible, extremely cheesy picture that tries too hard to be cute, it was fun for the format, but the atrocious writing and acting made it tough to sit through the whole film. During the long breakdown the theatre was very pleasant, no complaining or grumbling, the only negative was one extremely annoying older gentleman who felt it was his duty to come over to self-righteously correct Mr. Tamblyn about being the only person to appear in two cinerama films. Mr Tamblyn was as gracious with this irritant as he was with the otherwise polite stream of people who came by during the breakdown to meet him.

I was seated in the lower right of the Auditorium, about seven or eight rows back, and about center in that section of seats, I noted some distortion from the seating, but I thought the image was less distorted than regular films I've seen from the same seating area.

Technically I also noted that panning the camera was a bad, bad idea with this process. Camera movements on the z axis are just incredible, but lateral camera movement is a huge and noticeable irritant that immediately throws one out of the picture. Vertical tilts of the camera don't have the same issues that panning does. Blocking actions that move laterally across the screen has some moderate, but not distracting, distortion, for the most part the only problem is the pan of the camera itself. I was quite impressed at the seam blending, they were not very noticeable when the timing of the panels was very close, the biggest giveaway of the process was really the different color timing of each of the three panels. I really appreciated the detail of the prints and the enormity of the picture from so close up.

Sunday, I saw This Is Cinerama. This time I put myself in the rear left seating area, so I could get both a near and far perspective on the presentations, as well as a left and right perspective. I was again about in the center of the area I was at, from that angle, some of the left side of the screen isn't visible, I'd say about two or three percent. However being further back the picture was smaller (so the detail was not as noticeable) but the depth of the image seemed to be much enhanced. Not as good as 3D, but far superior to a normal flat projection. Unfortunately, the color of the print for This is Cinerama was much more flat, it only occasionally felt real or eye popping, which was a big difference from Grimm, where although the right eye has gone a bit off, it still was quite lovely. I'd say some of this is probably due to the superior lighting kit used for Grimm, as the most 'Lit' piece of This is Cinerama (the Scala opera/ballet) was one of the best looking bits of the film. It's a fairly slow moving picture, better than Grimm, but neither are a classic or a film I'd want to see again. The only drawback to this screening was to my left, where a gray haired man, who looked to be in his sixties, kept checking his cell phone and texting throughout the film.

I'm surprised at the report here that the Dome has such a keystoning problem. I wasn't very far from the projection booths sunday night, and I"d say that the lens in the booth is only about 10-12 feet above the floor of the rearest/highest part of the auditorium and the auditorium is pretty gently sloped, so that the rearmost seat is vertically at about only 2/3 of the height of the screen. I've seen a lot of horrible, severe keystoning in stadium multiplexes, and I figured the dome didn't have that severe of a problem because it is part of the older, flatter theatre design. Is it the extremely long throw from the lens to the screen that exacerbates the problem? Because the dome is one of the longest distances from projector to screen I've ever come across.

 

[NY2LA]

What about all the Fairy Tale movies out, MIRROR, MIRROR, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN and soon HANSEL AND GRETEL-WITCH HUNTERS. Let alone WHV releasing a Blu-ray of Hans Christian Anderson.  For the next couple of years fairy tales will be big business. 

I appreciate your and Tim's enthusiasm. From your mouths to Warner and TCM's ears! I'm just way too used to hearing people p--s on this picture so am less optimistic. Personally I could see this one several times in real Cinerama, but could not sit through TIC or West again in a theatre. Maybe at home where I can cut to highlights. I have believed all along that his picture has more commercial appeal than all the travelogues "put together!"
I'm shocked that WBHV gave HCA a BLU RAY - I thought it was just going to be a MOD DVD. WTF? They don't believe the Grimm has commercial appeal even for DVD or MOD, but that light little HCA movie does? Wow. No offense to HCA fans, happy for you but... yeah. Maybe it was cheaper/easier because Warner (like others now) is so fond of releasing old masters on Blu rather than doing a new one for HiDef.

 

[Ejanss]

I'm shocked that WBHV gave HCA a BLU RAY - I thought it was just going to be a MOD DVD. WTF? They don't believe the Grimm has commercial appeal even for DVD or MOD, but that light little HCA movie does? Wow. No offense to HCA fans, happy for you but... yeah. Maybe it was cheaper/easier because Warner (like others now) is so fond of releasing old masters on Blu rather than doing a new one for HiDef.

Actually--as noted on the appropriate thread--HCA was one of the jewels in Warner's well-hyped crown of licensing the Sam Goldwyn catalog, along with Guys & Dolls.
I'm pleasantly surprised they both got Digibooks, but we can probably expect a Best Years of Our Lives digibook announced any minute. Nothing to do with fairytales, although it didn't hurt HCA's mainstream sellability.

 

[NY2LA]

Second Grimm screening fairly uneventful. After initial panel alignment and slight tweaking, picture onscreen throughout without a hitch.
The sound, however, dropped out about 5-10 minutes in. Ran silent for several minutes (from walking through town to flower vendor selling Rumplestiltskin to Stossel introducing Greta to discussion about legal antiquities) show stops. About 30 minute delay, but when it comes back up all 3 panels match, sound synch is spot on and remains so to the end. Looks better than last time, really hard to find join lines.
Withholding comment on the rest of the evening until I hear from everyone else who was there...

 

[Rob_Ray]

I caught the Brothers Grimm last night from dead center in row HH. I had purposely avoided TCM airings of this film in hopes of someday catching it at the Dome and I wasn't disappointed. While it's not the greatest children's film ever made, I found it quite charming and pleasant on the huge Cinerama screen. The print was in pretty good shape for the miles it had on it. It was an original 1962 Technicolor print. In the first act, the right panel's color didn't match up well with the A and B, but in the second half, it was much improved. But what really impressed me was the sound. Despite some occasional distortion on the high-end, it sounded spectacular, with much more presense than in today's sound mixes, with the overture and entr'acte both giving off a sense of excitement and anticipation for what was to come.
As a downside, I don't think the film was well-served by being shot in Cinerama. It's certainly not an "epic" film. It's charms are slight and Cinerama did not enhance them too often, although the runaway carriage bit was well-done. However, I never got caught up in the story to the point where I forgot I was watching Cinerama and stopped looking for the join lines.
I did notice one directorial difference between this and HTWWW: Characters freely and frequently walked from panel to panel without fear. There was less of a sense of "you stay in your panel and I'll stay in mine" although nobody stayed motionless on a seamline either.
The performances were charming and perfectly suited to the material. Even Laurence Harvey, whom I believe was perfectly cast in The Manchurian Candidate because he's so devoid of charm, was endearing. For me, Martita Hunt was a standout as the "witch" story-teller, and each fairy-tale story had charm, wit and bouncy if not memorable tunes. I'm glad I saw it here first and was glad to share the experience with so many familiar friends also in attendance.

 

[GMpasqua]

Saw it at the Dome also. The color was very good (I expected the print to have turned to magenta by now) the sound was also good (I believe the spokesman said it was from a different source)

The film was enjoyable but hardly a classic. Why, oh Why did they have Buddy Hackett speak in a Cockney accent (which wasn't very good either)
Russ Tamblyn was there and spoke about the difficulties in making a Cinerama film, there were some difficulties in screening the film also and Russ came back with more stories during the time required to fix the tech problems at the Dome. Oh, by the way, Russ brought two friends with him..as he said.."two Oscar winners" - Rita Moreno and George Chakiris

 

[RolandL]

I caught the Brothers Grimm last night from dead center in row HH. I had purposely avoided TCM airings of this film in hopes of someday catching it at the Dome and I wasn't disappointed. While it's not the greatest children's film ever made, I found it quite charming and pleasant on the huge Cinerama screen. The print was in pretty good shape for the miles it had on it. It was an original 1962 Technicolor print. In the first act, the right panel's color didn't match up well with the A and B, but in the second half, it was much improved. But what really impressed me was the sound. Despite some occasional distortion on the high-end, it sounded spectacular, with much more presense than in today's sound mixes, with the overture and entr'acte both giving off a sense of excitement and anticipation for what was to come.
As a downside, I don't think the film was well-served by being shot in Cinerama. It's certainly not an "epic" film. It's charms are slight and Cinerama did not enhance them too often, although the runaway carriage bit was well-done. However, I never got caught up in the story to the point where I forgot I was watching Cinerama and stopped looking for the join lines.
I did notice one directorial difference between this and HTWWW: Characters freely and frequently walked from panel to panel without fear. There was less of a sense of "you stay in your panel and I'll stay in mine" although nobody stayed motionless on a seamline either.
The performances were charming and perfectly suited to the material. Even Laurence Harvey, whom I believe was perfectly cast in The Manchurian Candidate because he's so devoid of charm, was endearing. For me, Martita Hunt was a standout as the "witch" story-teller, and each fairy-tale story had charm, wit and bouncy if not memorable tunes. I'm glad I saw it here first and was glad to share the experience with so many familiar friends also in attendance.

Hey Rob,
I was there too last night in the same row, seats hh22 and hh23. We were probably talking to each other. I had my blue Cinerama Adventure t-shirt on.
I also was impressed with the color on the 50 year old print.
Interesting in that I talked with a guy from Image Trends that did the digital restoration of South Seas and Cinerama Holiday. I asked him if his group did the digiital restoration of How The West Was Won. He said no but it cost Warner Brothers $1,200,000 to do it and Image Trends could have done a better job and for only $200,000. He did not know why Warner wanted to do it themseleves.

 

[NY2LA]

Saw it at the Dome also. The color was very good (I expected the print to have turned to magenta by now) the sound was also good (I believe the spokesman said it was from a different source)
The film was enjoyable but hardly a classic. Why, oh Why did they have Buddy Hackett speak in a Cockney accent (which wasn't very good either)
Russ Tamblyn was there and spoke about the difficulties in making a Cinerama film, there were some difficulties in screening the film also and Russ came back with more stories during the time required to fix the tech problems at the Dome.  Oh, by the way, Russ brought two friends with him..as he said.."two Oscar winners"  - Rita Moreno and George Chakiris

I don't think Hans Christian Anderson is a classic either - strikes me more as a TV movie and that's on Blu Ray so go figure. Least Hackett's accent was consistent. I have had forty years to live with the character voices between the album and the videos so those don't bother me. Greg, what did you think of the poster?

 

[Rob_Ray]

Hey Rob,
I was there too last night in the same row, seats hh22 and hh23. We were probably talking to each other. I had my blue Cinerama Adventure t-shirt on.
I also was impressed with the color on the 50 year old print.
Interesting in that I talked with a guy from Image Trends that did the digital restoration of South Seas and Cinerama Holiday. I asked him if his group did the digiital restoration of How The West Was Won. He said no but it cost Warner Brothers $1,200,000 to do it and Image Trends could have done a better job and for only $200,000. He did not know why Warner wanted to do it themseleves.

Yes, I was two seats to your left in hh25. Great chatting with you and listening to everyone's stories about Cinerama. I have heard the same story about the restoration cost and studio politics with HTWWW from another high profile source involved with restoring TIC.
As far as the color on the print is concerned, isn't it true that a dye-transfer print from 1962 shouldn't fade? However, I was curious as to why the C panel was completely off in its colors from the other two in the first half. I suspect it was from another source entirely.

 

[Ejanss]

I don't think Hans Christian Anderson is a classic either - strikes me more as a TV movie and that's on Blu Ray so go figure. Least Hackett's accent was consistent. I have had forty years to live with the character voices between the album and the videos so those don't bother me.

The fairytale segments were George Pal-directed, so they were like getting (yeesh!) wretchedly hammed-up clips of "Tom Thumb" in just short enough doses to be enjoyable, and I just accepted Hackett and Terry-Thomas as part of the general atmosphere of overriding Cuteness.
The contrast of having a more conventional director do the bio segments gave that contrast to the fairytale segments, and I just accept that Hackett, like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, was speaking that particular dialect of Fairytale Cockney heard in stories but not the real world.

 

[Professor Echo]

I was also there last evening and indeed had a wonderful time in that wonderful world. As mentioned above, what a revelation to see Laurence Harvey play a part that was sweet and embodying such child like appeal.
One sour note to the proceedings last night occurred outside during the wait time for the next movie, CINERAMA HOLIDAY. A very disheveled looking man was irate and yelling profanities about the Arclight staff and how the festival is being so mismanaged. I was standing next to him and felt a little ill at ease given all the sudden outbursts of violence in our culture of late. I went inside reported him to a staff member who then went and talked to him and apparently calmed him down. His presentation was horrid but I wasn't in disagreement with him on his points which were mainly focused on why it was taking so long to let us back into the theater. Prior to GRIMM they kept us all outside for an inordinate amount of time and on a day with record breaking heat.

 

[rsmithjr]

I was also there last evening and indeed had a wonderful time in that wonderful world. As mentioned above, what a revelation to see Laurence Harvey play a part that was sweet and embodying such child like appeal.
One sour note to the proceedings last night occurred outside during the wait time for the next movie, CINERAMA HOLIDAY. A very disheveled looking man was irate and yelling profanities about the Arclight staff and how the festival is being so mismanaged. I was standing next to him and felt a little ill at ease given all the sudden outbursts of violence in our culture of late. I went inside reported him to a staff member who then went and talked to him and apparently calmed him down. His presentation was horrid but I wasn't in disagreement with him on his points which were mainly focused on why it was taking so long to let us back into the theater. Prior to GRIMM they kept us all outside for an inordinate amount of time and on a day with record breaking heat.

I was there as well. There are 2 things to be said about the situation:
1. The Arclight is really not set up for festivals like this and was doing the best that it could. They asked people to leave so that they can clean the lobby, auditorium, and restrooms before the next show. Having worked in theatres, I am not sure how they could have done much better.
2. For various reasons, the schedules were running late. This was also unavoidable.
I have my own complaints about the Arclight to be sure, but in many ways the available staff was doing the best job that they could be expected to do.

 

[Professor Echo]

Robert, you can understand the frustration in the people waiting outside to be let in for GRIMM. It was unbearably hot at that hour and all we could see were several, for lack of a better phrase, VIPS (?) milling about the air conditioned lobby taking pictures in front of the CINERAMA camera and just generally enjoying being out of the heat. Even if SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE ran late that afternoon they could have still allowed us to hang out in the lobby until the auditorium was clean. As it is, we were offered no explanation for the delay and weren't allowed in until less than fifteen minutes before the showtime. That's unheard of nowadays.

A little more proactive and decisive action on the part of the staff could remedy this. The interaction I have had with the staff during the festival has been fine, but they have seemed a bit overwhelmed at times and, as a result, disorganized. If they are not set up for this kind of a festival, why wasn't someone in charge of making sure they were?

 

[rsmithjr]

Robert, you can understand the frustration in the people waiting outside to be let in for GRIMM. It was unbearably hot at that hour and all we could see were several, for lack of a better phrase, VIPS (?) milling about the air conditioned lobby taking pictures in front of the CINERAMA camera and just generally enjoying being out of the heat. Even if SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE ran late that afternoon they could have still allowed us to hang out in the lobby until the auditorium was clean. As it is, we were offered no explanation for the delay and weren't allowed in until less than fifteen minutes before the showtime. That's unheard of nowadays.
A little more proactive and decisive action on the part of the staff could remedy this. The interaction I have had with the staff during the festival has been fine, but they have seemed a bit overwhelmed at times and, as a result, disorganized. If they are not set up for this kind of a festival, why wasn't someone in charge of making sure they were?

Well, while I wasn't saying anything about it, my overall opinion is that the staff had no real appreciation of either the historical nature of what was going on or the very elite (cinematically, at least) crowd that they had attracted; obviously some of the key people such as John Sittig were very different on this point.
For most employees, this was business as usual, and the films are all just commodity items.
[More of the same deleted.]

 

[Professor Echo]

I agree with you, Robert, and much of my argument, though not all, is nitpicking. I did however feel sorry for all the seniors who are older than me waiting outside during the extremely warm evening. One was in a wheelchair and must have been very uncomfortable. All in all though it's been relatively competent and certainly better than some experiences I have had at other venues in town, *cough,* the Cinematheque at the Egyptian, *cough.*

 

[NY2LA]

And yet people jump on me when I express a low opinion of ArcLight.
When I arrived last night and was checked in at the door (Again everyone was taking pictures of that nice new poster) i showed the guy I had a second ticket for the next movie. "You want to scan them both?" No, I was told, I would have to come back out and check in again. Now not that I was expecting the worst but I was there Saturday when the show was like a total of an hour later than planned. I didn't think it likely I'd be stuck outside waiting for the next show. Last night was much better but there was a delay. Nothing upsetting but I imagine we did get out as the next show was supposed to be letting in.
I looked all over the front of the lobby, entry, etc. for someone, ANYONE, to check in my ticket for the next show. There was no one. Not a soul to be found in those priest-like shirts. Finally I spotted someone selling the books at a table. "Doesn't anyone need to scan me in or anything?" She looked at the ticket and in the exaggerated enunciation of someone for whom English is at best a second language, said something like "OOH YEES. MOOVEE IN THERE." Okay.
Now about those anniversary souvenir books. Sheesh! Not only full of grade-school mistakes in the text, but so low res, even the small type was getting jaggy with it. But does anyone else notice the noxious smell? They had Marty Hart do all the posters, which looked very nice. Maybe they should have had him and a proofreader do the booklet and printed them professionally.
Mr. Sittig is a regular good guy with a genuine enthusiasm for Cinerama and movie showmanship. He does not run the company. The upper and middle management of Pacific ArcLight is frankly a deadly mix of ego, ignorance and arrogance. They believe their own hype as they remain clueless to what's really important and how often they miss the mark. Yet you can walk in there on any given day and spot countless thoughtless or sloppy details that go over looked while they think it's important that the priest outfits have no reflective buttons. Which is kinda funny as it allows them to so blend in with the dark walls as to be invisible. Last night someone pointed out his again had a seat with a spring sticking out that he had reported back on Friday. Of course nothing was done. "You shouldn't have to deal with that, least they can do is give you something to cover the seat. Why don't you ask someone?" And damned if we didn't have to scour that dark room to spot one of them critters blending into the wall, hiding in plain (dim) sight.
This was supposed to be a big deal for them and yet they couldn't even bother to replace the 4-5 burnt out lights among the tinted few that barely light the interior. It's already like a coffin inside, why keep it even darker (unless it's to trick guests into thinking the screen image for non 3 strip films is brighter than it is.)
Speaking of dim - who saw Cinerama Holiday and the rest of the program last night?

 

[NY2LA]

I One sour note to the proceedings last night occurred outside during the wait time for the next movie, CINERAMA HOLIDAY. A very disheveled looking man was irate and yelling profanities about the Arclight staff and how the festival is being so mismanaged. I was standing next to him and felt a little ill at ease given all the sudden outbursts of violence in our culture of late. I went inside reported him to a staff member who then went and talked to him and apparently calmed him down. His presentation was horrid but I wasn't in disagreement with him on his points which were mainly focused on why it was taking so long to let us back into the theater. Prior to GRIMM they kept us all outside for an inordinate amount of time and on a day with record breaking heat.

Agreed. All they had to do to consider the heat is move the ropes up to the auditorium entrance, allowing people to get in and use the facilities, cool off and buy more stuff while they do whatever (I didn't notice they cleaned up much in between shows, anyway, I stepped over debris at all 3 shows). This is the kind of detail they should think about in advance. It's not rocket science, it's kindness and consideration. This is just bad, thoughtless management, training orgianization and planning that doesn't consider the patron's perspective as much as their own. Did you catch the graffiti in the bathroom?