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The Oscars’ animated feature category turns voting age this year, which means none of the genre’s masterpieces dating back to the 1930s ever competed for the coveted prize. And that means one of this year’s competitors for the prize, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” represents something of a fresh chance for a story that worked so well for Walt Disney back in 1940 that it still garnered two Oscars — for song and score — and the kind of praise filmmakers of all genres and stripes can only dream of.

Variety’s review of Walt Disney’s masterpiece was typical of the ecstatic mood that greeted the film’s release back in early 1940: “Technically an improvement on ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ and in many ways quite as captivating in imaginative fantasy, Walt Disney’s ‘Pinocchio’ (Pin-oak-io) is the finest piece of feature length animation yet created.

“ ‘Pinocchio’ has...

For many, this coming Sunday is all about football and Rihanna (not necessarily in that order). Kickoff for Super Bowl Lvii begins at 6:30 p.m Et on February 12, with the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles competing to win the championship. Fox is set to air the event, which will feature Chris Stapleton performing the national anthem and Rihanna making a return to performing during the Halftime Show.

For the less sports-inclined among us, it can be hard to find other ways to spend your time on Super Bowl Sunday. Luckily, between endless streaming shows and cable programming, there’s no shortage of films and TV shows to enjoy. Here’s a guide to all the counter-programming available during the Super Bowl — whether you’re tuning out entirely, only checking out the Halftime Show, or quit halfway through when your favorite team starts losing.

Dog Shows

The most famous “Super Bowl” alternative is,...

Click here to read the full article.

Pat Rosson, a son and grandson of cinematographers who appeared on The Andy Griffith Show, The Twilight Zone and the soap opera The Young Marrieds as a child actor in the 1960s, has died. He was 69.

Rosson died April 28 of a heart attack in Los Angeles, his daughter, Maria Delilah Rosson, told The Hollywood Reporter.

On “Runaway Kid,” which premiered in November 1960 as the sixth episode of CBS’ The Andy Griffith Show, Rosson played George “Tex” Foley, whose circumstances teach Opie (Ron Howard) a lesson about trust and keeping promises.

A month later, he appeared on CBS’ The Twilight Zone on the season two episode “The Night of the Meek,” which starred Art Carney as a down-on-his-luck department store Santa Claus.

On ABC’s The Young Marrieds from 1965-66, Rosson portrayed Jerry Karr, a youngster in the middle of a custody battle between his biological mother,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Kino Lorber has released the 1964 comedy "The Brass Bottle" on Blu-ray. The film appears to have been the inspiration for the hit TV series "I Dream of Jeannie" which starred Barbara Eden as the sultry title character. Some cinephiles argue that the film and TV series have nothing to do with one another, but it seems to me that if you make a movie with Barbara Eden and a genie from a brass bottle, than it's more than a coincidence that a TV series starring Eden featuring a genie and a brass bottle soon appears. It is true that Eden does appear as the female lead in the feature film, but in a very down-to-earth role as Sylvia, the fiancee of aspiring-but-unsuccessful architect Harold Ventimore (Tony Randall). Sorry, guys, no navel-gazing to be had here.The premise of the plot is as old as the pyramids: Harold...

The big-scale Cinerama fantasy once thought unrecoverable is back — a terrific restoration brings us George Pal’s ode to fairy tales, filmed on Bavarian locations with an international cast. Laurence Harvey and Karl Boehm are the brothers that compiled the famed tales of princesses, witches, magic spells and fiery dragons. Their idealized biography is interspersed with three full fairy tale stories, about a magic cloak of invisibility, a cobbler’s helpful elves, and a pair of fearless dragon slayers. The show has dancing, beautiful locations, a sequence with Puppetoons and a terrific animated dragon. Featured stars are Claire Bloom, Walter Slezak, Barbara Eden, Oscar Homolka, Martita Hunt, Yvette Mimieux, Russ Tamblyn, Jim Backus, Terry-Thomas and Buddy Hackett; a long-form docu goes into fascinating detail explaining how Dave Strohmaier and Tom March accomplished the mind-boggling restoration.

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1962 / Color / 2:89 widescreen [Smilebox] widescreen / 140 135 min.

“Once upon a time, there were two brothers…”

The classic film The Wonderful World Of Brothers Grimm (1962) will debut as a Two-Disc Special Edition Blu-ray on March 29 from the Warner Archive Collection. This release features Restored 1080p HD Masters from 6K composite scan of original Cinerama 3-panel Camera Negatives

The classic film The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm will debut as a Two-Disc Special Edition Blu-ray on March 29 from the Warner Archive Collection. Restored in 4K (3840 x 2160) master files from 6K files of original Cinerama Camera Negatives, with the most advanced technology available used by Cinerama Restorationists David Strohmaier and Tom H. March, to eliminate the “join lines” that plagued traditional release prints, and early video format releases. The Cinerama 7-channel sound has also been restored for a new 5.1 mix that brings a spectacular sonic experience to match the amazing Cinerama imagery.

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Actress Yvette Mimieux passed away on Tuesday from natural causes. She was 80 years old. Mimieux rose to fame starring opposite Rod Taylor in George Pal's 1960 screen adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine". Prominent roles in major films soon followed and she won acclaim for her abilities primarily in dramas, although the1960 film "Where the Boys Are" combined comedy with tragedy and Mimieux's star rose further when the movie became a boxoffice hit with teenagers. In 1962, she teamed again with George Pal for his Cinerama classic "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm".  Other major films in which she starred included "The Light in the Piazza", "Toys in the Attic", "Diamond Head", "The Reward" and the Disney hit "Monkeys Go Home!". In 1968, she reunited with Rod Taylor for "Dark of the Sun" (aka "The Mercenaries"), a brutal but well-made adventure film centering on social unrest and revolution in the Congo.

Actress Yvette Mimieux, who starred in movies including “Where the Boys Are,” “The Time Machine,” “Light in the Piazza,” “Toys in the Attic,” “Dark of the Sun” and “The Picasso Summer,” died Tuesday. She was 80.

The beautiful blonde Mimieux made most of her films in the 1960s, but she was also among the stars of Disney’s 1979 sci-fi film “The Black Hole.”

Among the films Mimieux made in 1960 were MGM’s glossy teen movie “Where the Boys Are,” in which four coeds including Mimieux’s Melanie head to Fort Lauderdale for spring break in search of fun and the “right” boy, and George Pal’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine,” starring Rod Taylor and with Mimieux third billed as Weena, Taylor’s romantic interest, who lives among the Eloi, a peaceful race living in the year 802,701.

In 1962 she appeared in four films, including the big-budget critical and...

Angelenos are still processing their grief about the closure of the ArcLight theaters. Pacific Theatres announced on Monday that it would close all of its locations, which include the ArcLight Hollywood and the historic Cinerama Dome.

Not as well known is that the theater chain also owns the Cinerama technology. The three-camera filming technique was introduced in 1952 in response to the rise of television, and was virtually obsolete by the time the Cinerama Dome opened on Sunset Boulevard in November 1963. The name lived on for a few years after that, in the form of single-camera 70 millimeter releases that were marketed as Cinerama films — including “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” the first film ever shown at the dome.

The dome itself was not outfitted with the three-camera projection technology until 2002, to coincide with the format’s 50th anniversary. The same year, David Strohmaier released the documentary “Cinerama Adventure,” detailing the history of the process.

The Magic Sword

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1962/ 1:85 / 80 min.

Starring Gary Lockwood, Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood

Directed by Bert I. Gordon

Fresh off producing and directing Tormented, a mildly lurid psychological shocker released in 1960, Bert I. Gordon pointed his next film in the direction of the Saturday matinee crowd, a select audience of thrill crazy adolescents who made box office bonanzas out of phantasmagorical entertainments like 7th Voyage of Sinbad. As with most (all?) of Gordon’s work, his eyes were too big for his stomach – the 1962 fairy tale called for Sinbad-sized thrills but Gordon was working with a fraction of Ray Harryhausen’s budget and a two week shooting schedule. If nothing else the director was determined to put up on the screen what was promised on the poster, “The Most Unbelievable Sights Ever Seen” but once again, Mr. Big came up short.

In the run-up to its...

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 100 96 min. / Street Date February 28, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Victoria Vetri, Robin Hawdon, Patrick Allen, Drewe Henley, Sean Caffrey, Magda Konopka, Imogen Hassall, Patrick Holt, Jan Rossini, Carol Hawkins, Maria O’Brien.

Cinematography: Dick Bush

Film Editor: Peter Curran

Visual Effects: Jim Danforth

Original Music: Mario Nascimbene, Philip Martell

Written by: Val Guest, J.G. Ballard

Produced by: Aida Young

Directed by Val Guest

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth didn’t get much attention when released here early in March of 1971. Only film fanatics obsessed with special effects had much to say about it. Cinefantastique magazine showed a still photo or two of dinosaurs on the rampage, and told us that stop-motion effects notable Jim Danforth, who we knew from mentions in Famous Monsters, was attached. We also learned that an animator named David Allen had worked on one sequence.

By Todd Garbarini

The Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles will be presenting a 55th anniversary screening of Robert Wise’s Oscar-winning 1961 musical West Side Story. The 152-minute film will be screened on Wednesday, June 29, 2016 at 7:30 pm. Starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn and Rita Moreno, the screening is scheduled to precede appearances by George Chakiris who played Bernardo and Russ Tamblyn who played Riff.

From the press release:

Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.

West Side Story (1961)

55th Anniversary Screening

One of the most honored and commercially successful of all movie musicals, West Side Story earned a near-record 10 Academy Awards in 1961.The film version of the groundbreaking stage musical that re-imagined Romeo and Juliet in contemporary New York City retained and deepened the play’s emotional impact by bringing together a show business all-star team. The show’s director and choreographer,...

With Tale of Tales and The Huntsman: Winter’s War both opening this weekend, we have a sudden double feature of fairy tale movies on our hands. That makes it an excellent time to revisit the only fairy tale film nominated for the Oscar Best Production Design, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. (That seems impossible, I know, but it's true.)

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm was the first narrative feature to be shot in the original 3-panel Cinerama process. The second, and last, was How the West Was Won, which I showcased two weeks ago. While the epic Western, or at least some its directors, tried to smooth over the unwieldy 3-camera process with landscapes and the occasional single-camera 70-mm shot, directors Henry Levin and George Pal really ran with Cinerama for their fairy tale epic. The results were a bit bonkers...

Chicago – Next year will mark the 50th Anniversary of the seminal 1960s sitcom, “I Dream of Jeannie.” Unforgettable – for many reasons – was Barbara Eden, who portrayed a genie named Jeannie. Ms. Eden was at the “Hollywood Show” Chicago last year, and was interviewed by HollywoodChicago.com.

Eden was born Barbara Jean Morehead in Tucson, Arizona. After her family moved to the West Coast, Eden began singing, first in the church choir and eventually in night clubs. This led to acting and performance classes, including the City College of San Francisco and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After winning the title of Miss San Francisco, Eden moved to Los Angeles, and began a series of appearances on classic TV shows including “I Love Lucy,” “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” “Perry Mason,” “Gunsmoke,” “Father Knows Best” and “The Andy Griffith Show.”

Barbara Eden at the “Hollywood Show Chicago” in 2013

Photo...

Austrian actor Karlheinz Bohm has died, aged 86.

Bohm was known for playing Kaiser Franz Joseph in 1955's Sissi and its two sequels, as well as the serial killer in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom in 1960.

He also played Jacob Grimm in The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in 1962 and Ludwig Beethoven in The Magnificent Rebel.

The following decade, he worked with New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, starring in four of his films.

Bohm turned to activism in later years, founding the charity Humans for Humans after losing a bet on German TV show Wanna Bet?. The charity raises money to help people in Ethiopia.

He received several honours for his charity work, including the Balzan Prize in 2007 and the Essl Social Prize in 2011. He was also handed honorary Ethiopian citizenship in 2003.

Bohm is survived by wife Almaz Teshome and five children from previous marriages.

The actor's parents...

Several readers have corrected us on our statement that The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm was never released on home video. Readers Paul Scrabo and Allen Blank point out that the film was released on laser disc and Paul also says a VHS version was also released. Thanks for the corrections, guys. Our understanding is that there apparently isn't a print deemed high grade enough to merit a modern video release for the age of digital media. Hopefully, the film will somehow find its way onto home video in the future. ...

The History of Aspect Ratio

In this 18-minute educational video by FilmmakerIQ, John Hess details the history of the cinematic aspect ratio, from 4:3 to 16:9, 1.85:1 to 2.39:1.

Here is a timeline of each aspect ratio as well as some notable films that utilized them.

Original Silent Film (1892) - 1.33:1

- Established by William Dickson and Thomas Edison Academy Ratio (1932) - 1.37:1

- All sound films from 1932 to 1955 were shot in Academy ratio Cinerama (1952) - 2.59:1

- This is Cinerama, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm CinemaScope (1953) - 2.35:1

- The Robe, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Seven Year Itch VistaVision (1954) - 1.85:1

- White Christmas, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest Todd-ao (1955) - 2.20:1

- Oklahoma!, Cleopatra, The Sound of Music MGM Camera 65 (1957) - 2.76:1

- Raintree County, Ben-Hur Ultra Panavision 70 (1957) - 2.76:1

- How the West Was Won, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,...

(Photo: Thomas Hauerslev)

By Bruce Campbell

Over four days the 2013 Bradford Widescreen Festival located at The Pictureville Cinema played host to a mixture of classics in 70mm, CinemaScope and Cinerama formats. There was a special tribute to the 60th anniversary of CinemaScope, the famous widescreen process developed for Twentieth Century Fox back in the 1950s.

Friday kicked off with a rare 70mm screening of The Longest Day preceded by an informative introduction by Sir Christopher Frayling. This was followed by the much- loved The Great Escape presented for the first time in 4K Digital and the picture and sound were simply stunning. Cinema Retro contributor Dr. Sheldon Hall provided an illuminating introduction to this war classic. Following the delegates’ reception in the Kodak Gallery, The Sound of Music was presented in 70mm. The print was generally good although three quarters of the way through, a reel snapped resulting in a...

As the Academy celebrates 85 years of great films at the Oscars on February 24th, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is set to take movie fans on the ultimate studio tour with the 2013 edition of 31 Days Of Oscar®. Under the theme Oscar by Studio, the network will present a slate of more than 350 movies grouped according to the studios that produced or released them. And as always, every film presented during 31 Days Of Oscar is an Academy Award® nominee or winner, making this annual event one of the most anticipated on any movie lover’s calendar.

As part of the network’s month-long celebration, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has graciously provided the original Academy Awards® radio broadcasts from 1930-1952. Specially chosen clips from the radio archives will be featured throughout TCM’s 31 Days Of Oscar website.

Hollywood was built upon the studio system, which saw nearly ever aspect...

One of the highlights of last weekend’s Cinerama festival at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood wasn’t a vintage movie but a brand-new short-subject called In the Picture, shot with one of the same cameras that photographed How The West Was Won and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. It’s a consciously corny travelogue of Los Angeles featuring two couples (just as in Cinerama Holiday) taking in the sights: Mulholland Drive, the Griffith Park carousel, Griffith Observatory, historic Angels Flight funicular railway in downtown L.A., and a pair of brigantine sailing ships in San Pedro harbor. It so happens that one of the locals showing his visiting friends...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]...

The third and final day of the Fantasy Film Weekend started and although I was tired there was plenty to look forward to. The first film would be Red Sonja, which was an easy one to start off with. I knew that the highlight of the day would of course be The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and the Masks screen talk with Andreas Marschall. It was nice to know that the end was near of course as tiredness was starting to become normality and my brain needed some serious rest.

Red Sonja

Red Sonja is a film that can no way be called good, but it has it arguably has its place in cult history. Not many films would pair up Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brigitte Nielsen in a Conan the Barbarian setting but this is obviously what they were looking for. Conan is of course superior but to...

Joining the Fantasy Film Weekend for a second year, I knew what to expect, plenty of films and a Monday where your body feels like it wants to sleep for a whole week. The film festival is quite a rare gem in the festival calendar as it focuses not only on the new, but the classic and at times the downright strange films. This year there were Attractions such as a 70mm print of Big Trouble in Little China, Coraline 3D, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in Cinerama and most other films on 35mm where possible so this of course is one for the lovers of film of all types.

The first day was quite a leisurely stroll into the strange and horrific, just to ease into proceedings, but with Pieces being on the bill for the day it was sure to push up the gore value to a good level.

The National Media Museum in Bradford is, from 15th – 17th June 2012, set to play host to the 11th Fantastic Films Weekend, giving horror, fantasy and sci-fi fans in the North their annual fix of thrills and spills.

This year the festival will focus on schlock, women in horror and sci-fi, and feature a festival first – a Cinerama screening of The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. Other highlights will include an evening of giallo treats new and old, family fun with Coraline 3D and live make-up demos, and a Hammer strand packed with rare and premiere Hammer screenings.

Special guests will include Renée Glynne who worked for many years as continuity/script supervisor for Hammer before going freelance. Her work includes The Nanny, Legend of the Golden Vampire and The Quatermass Xperiment, the HD premiere of which will be screened following her screentalk. She will be in conversation with Hammer archivist,...

As your dedicated publishers prepare to embark on our journey to the 2012 Widescreen Weekend at the National Media Museum in Bradford, England, we've finally got around to looking at photos from last year's festival. (Expediency is not one of our top qualities.) Here are some photos we snapped during the course of watching back-to-back widescreen epics from morning till late at night. 

(Photos copyright Cinema Retro. All rights reserved) 

2011:  Cinema Retro's Dave Worrall and Lee Pfeiffer take a quick smoking break during the endurance-testing morning-till-late evening epic movie marathons. Worrall is wearing the one of-a-kind Cinema Retro Where Eagles Dare commemorative shirt. We should have had hundreds made- everyone wanted to buy one!

2011: The audience was treated to a rare original trailer for The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in 3 panel Cinerama. This year, Cinema Retro is co-sponsoring a screening of the full film.

2011: The ice...

Thomas Hauerslev, who runs the fantastic retro movie web site In70mm.com, provides this full schedule for this year's Widescreen Weekend festival in Bradford, England. (Thomas also does yeoman work as one of the programmers for the festival.) The theme of this year's program is the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Cinerama. It will be a treasure trove of films rarely seen in their original format, ranging from three-panel Cinerama to Super Panavision 70 prints. Titles include the rarely-seen Russian Adventure, How the West Was Won, Ryan's Daughter, This is Cinerama, Cinerama Adventure, Around the World in 80 Days and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, shown for the first time in 40 years in three panel Cinerama (co-sponsored by Cinema Retro). The festival draws classic film historians from around the world, this year including Kevin Brownlow and Sir Christopher Frayling. Cinerama historians Dave Strohmaier ad Randy Gitsch will...

Cinema Retro will once again be attending the fabulous Widescreen Weekend at the National Media Museum in Bradford, England April 27-30. Retro movie lovers will be converging on Europe's last remaining Cinerama theater to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the legendary widescreen format. One of the great joys of the festival is that is that it allows like-minded movie lovers from around the globe to watch widescreen epics in the manner they were meant to be seen. Cinema Retro is proud to be one of the sponsors of a rare screening of MGM's The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in its original 3-panel format. As in the tradition, Cinema Retro publishers Lee Pfeiffer and Dave Worrall will be holding court until the wee small hours at the bar of the historic Midland Hotel. Join us for a drink (or ten!) and share the mutual love of widescreen epics.

Here...

Cinema Retro enters its eighth great year with issue #22, now shipping worldwide. All subscribers will be receiving their copies shortly.

If you have not renewed your subscription, please do so today! We cannot hold copies in reserve for you, so don't miss out on a single great issue during 2012. Click here to subscribe instantly through our Ebay affiliate store or click here for other methods of subscribing.

Highlights of issue #22 include special features that celebrate the 60th anniversary of Cinerama:

Sir Christopher Frayling provides a major 10 page article on the making of MGM's Cinerama blockbuster How the West Was Won, featuring deleted scenes and a wealth of rarely seen photographs. Howard Hughes pays tribute to Jack Cardiff's 1968 gut-busting adventure Dark of the Sun (aka The Mercenaries) starring Rod Taylor Dave Worrall blows the lid off the 1969 Cinerama epic Krakatoa, East of Java and takes us behind the scenes for...

American actor and voice artist behind cartoon characters including Top Cat

Arnold Stang, who has died aged 91, was one of the few voice artists who resembled a cartoon character. Stang, who described himself as looking like "a chipmunk caught out in the rain", could have been the model for Walt Disney's Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio or Flik, the ant hero of A Bug's Life, neither of whom he dubbed. Instead, he was the voice of Top Cat (1961-62), the smooth-talking feline "indisputable leader of the gang" of alley cats in the much-loved Joseph Barbera and William Hanna television cartoon series. (In the UK it was retitled Boss Cat because Top Cat was also the name of a brand of cat food.) Because the cat character, "whose intellectual close friends get to call him Tc", as the title song explained, was based on Phil Silvers's Sergeant Bilko, Stang delivered a good imitation of Silvers's voice.

Arnold Stang was a character actor best known for his roles as nerdish comic foils on radio, television, and films. His distinctive nasal voice was also used to great effect for animated productions, notably as the voice of Top Cat, known as Tc by his friends, for the popular Hanna-Barbera animated television series Top Cat from 1960 to 1961. He was also the voice of Lulipopo in the animated feature Alakazam the Great in 1960, and Nurtle the Turtle in Pinocchio in Outer Space in 1965. He was Rumpelstiltskin in George Pal’s fantasy classic The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm in 1962.

Stang was born in Manhattan, New York, on September 28, 1918. He began his career on radio in children’s programs while in his teens. He worked with numerous comedy legends on radio and followed Milton Berle to television in the 1959s. He was Herman the mouse, opposite Sid Raymond’s Katnip the cat,...