You have to be young at heart to relish the film and I enjoyed the visuals as a child would. You know today that the two brothers wrote on two desks side by side to accommodate the cinerama screen--yet it looks so much better visually. It is not great cinema but good cinema of the sixties.

Of particular note was the Terry Thomas and Bud Hackett sub-plot which might not appear to be great technically but is funny and heartwarming even today. Laurence Harvey as Wilhelm Grimm (it was difficult to note that was the Cobbler as well) and Martita Hunt as the witch were superb. The German locations were ideal. The art direction and the puppet/animation sequences were really topnotch--who cares if there was a car visible in one shot!

In short, this is an ideal film for family viewing and the studios should consider re-releasing it for school viewing. All the kids today know of Snow White and Cinderella, but how many know of the Grimm brothers or of why Cinderella was called by that name? The film needs imaginative marketing to keep the box office jingling...

In summer 2022 TCM is showing the recently extensively restored, full Cinerama image version of the film, which just came out on Blu-Ray. The image clarity and color are excellent, with almost no trace of 3 camera Cinerama distortions. But the movie itself is a mixed bag, with more negatives than positives. Anyone who is moderately savvy about film technique will see that the filmmakers were very limited by shortcomings with the Cinerama process. There are no close ups or medium close ups, everything is shot in long shots or medium shots. The large majority of the film is made up of static shots, where the camera does not move. The camera never moves side to side, only in and out. And there is very distracting fish eye distortion in the interior scenes (less noticeable in the outdoor scenes).

Lawrence Harvey is lively and fun in his role, but Karl Bohm is a liability. And how is it that one brother speaks with a British accent, and the other with a German accent ? The film makes good use of Russ Tamblin's tumbling ability and he shows plenty of playful energy. The women in the cast are given little to do and do it merely adequitely.

The music is a highlight, catchy and light, though to nitpick, the choral arrangements are old fashioned for 1962, sounding more like 1940's Disney (composer Lee Harline scored Pinochio and perhaps one or two other early 40's Disney features).

An enchanting faerie tale anthology film, couched in a biographical story that is somewhat less interesting than the stories themselves, which is perhaps inevitable. There are a lot of stars in a lot of stories -- Russ Tamblyn shows off some of the fantastic aerobic dancing he displayed in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." If only they could have come up with a more worthy opponent for their lovely stop motion dragon than Buddy Hackett (who, on the flip side, makes for an unusual ghost).

The writing is good, and there are a lot of really fun scenes. The Cinerama process is used very effectively (wish I could have seen it on the big screen).