On "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm"

Today marks the US release date for one of my all time favorite fairy tale movies, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, which came out August 7, 1962. It tells the fictionalized story of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm and their journey from more serious scholarly work into the world of fairy tales and is delightfully interspersed with three fairy tale segments of "The Dancing Princess" (a pet peeve of mine--the Grimms' story is "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", but I do like the segment), "The Singing Bone" (complete with puppet dragon), and "The Elves and the Shoemaker" and presents everything in true 1960's fairy tale portrayal goodness!

Earlier this year I finally broke down and bought the MGM Records Deluxe Edition album, so I thought today would be a fun day to spotlight it and share some interesting facts about the movie! 

The fun thing about this album is that under the record is an inset with a book about the making of the movie, so that's where the images you'll be seeing come from.

This was one of the first films MGM made using the three camera Cinerama process (the other being How the West Was Won, which they actually devoted a page to in this book).

I absolutely love all the little sketch images!

The legendary George Pal directed the stop motion fairy tale segments, with other segments being directed by the notable Henry Levin, and it is made up of a truly delightful cast including stars such as Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Barbara Eden, Russ Tamblyn, Terry-Thomas, Buddy Hackett, Jim Backus, and Ian Wolfe (the seemingly perpetually old man that appears in a ton of 60's shows usually as a grump and who's career spanned the 30's-90's).  

The movie was filmed in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a Medieval Franconian City in Germany. According to the book, props used in the movie were enthusiastically provided by local museums including a cannon used by Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars, street signs, and books by the Grimms. At one point in the movie, the brothers travel on a steam propelled side-wheeler, which in real life was named the Oskar Huber. This was used for film service "just three days before it was scheduled to retire to a spot of honor in the famous ship museum at Mainz". The film crew also had special permission to "borrow" so to speak a cobblestone road

In terms of award nominations, the movie did fairly well, being nominated in 1963 for Academy Awards for Best Music, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design (It won this one!); and with Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor-Motion Picture Drama (Laurence Harvey) and Best Motion Picture Musical.  

For added fun you can watch the trailer on IMDb here!

♥🏰♥