"Early in the 1800's, the fearful sounds of war once again shook the heart of Europe. Not far from the field of battle, there was another sound soft and gentle. Yet, it has echoed down the years to be heard long after the guns were stilled and the battles forgotten. If you listen closely, you can hear it... now."
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm is a 1962 fantasy film produced and co-directed by George Pal for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, co-starring Laurence Harvey and Karlheinz Böhm as the titular brothers. One of only two fictional narratives shot in the Cinerama process (alongside How the West Was Won released the same year), it dramatizes the lives of The Brothers Grimm in the early 19th century, along with a few of their stories. George Pal's Puppetoons are also used to animate elves and a dragon.
The film has examples of:
- Adaptation Species Change: The boar from The Singing Bone is replaced with a dragon.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: The Good Luck Elves in The Cobbler and the Elves aren't real elves, but rather wooden figures the cobbler carved for orphans' Christmas presents, which come to life before he gives them away.
- Adaptational Badass: Unlike the original protagonist of The Singing Bone, Hans slays the dragon without resorting to magic.
- Adaptational Job Change: Wilhelm tells his children that the Dancing Princess married a woodsman, as opposed to the soldier from The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Additionally, Dorothea states that she heard that the princess married a tailor, Jacob recalls her marrying a farmer, and the bookkeeper recounts her wedding a fisherman.
- Adaptational Timespan Change: Traditionally, The Twelve Dancing Princesses and The Elves and the Cobbler encompass several days each, but the versions told in this movie each only take place in one and a half days. The Singing Bone also reduces how many years pass in between Hans' death and the discovery of his bone.
- Adapted Out:
- The Dancing Princess doesn't have 11 sisters.
- The Cobbler has no wife.
- Hans doesn't meet a dwarf who would give him an enchanted blade, and Ludwig receives half of the kingdom rather than a princess' hand in marriage for "killing the dragon".
- Advertised Extra: The poster prominently features The Frog Prince, even though viewers never hear his story in full. Although, he does appear in Wilhelm's fever dream.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: In The Dancing Princess, a gypsy woman helps out with the woodman's pursuit of the princess, by giving him an Invisibility Cloak and a Domino Mask as rewards for his kindness towards the gypsy.
- Breakup Makeup Scenario: Greta calls off her engagement to Jacob when his job interrupts their romance. However, when the brothers accept honorary membership at the Berlin Royal Academy, she helps welcome Jacob at the train station.
- Covers Always Lie: The poster shows Wilhelm embracing Greta, Jacob's fiancée, rather than his own wife, Dorothea.
- Dance of Romance: After the woodsman and the Dancing Princess dance the night away at a gypsy camp, the princess tells her father the next morning that she'll marry no man other than him.
- Domino Mask: The woodsman wears one while dancing with the princess.
- Dragons Versus Knights: In "The Singing Bone", a knight named Ludwig sets off to battle a fearsome dragon, but ultimately turns out to be a bumbling coward as his assistant, Hans, ultimately defeats it instead.
- Fantasy Sequence: Wilhelm has two based on fairy tales he tells, one based on a tale he overhears, and a fever dream of other fairy tale characters meeting him in his bedroom.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Wilhelm, who often prioritizes fairy tales above work, and Jacob, who financially supports both brothers and Wilhelm's family by writing scholarly books, respectively fill these roles for most of the movie.
- Gentle Giant: The giant in Wilhelm's fever dream has a surprisingly even temper, and doesn't mind carrying the other characters over to the writer's house.
- Happily Ever After: Wilhelm naturally ends The Dancing Princess by telling his children that she and the woodsman lived happily ever after. Later, some text at the end of the movie declares that the Brothers Grimm did, as well.
- Happily Married: Dorothea assures Wilhelm that even if he can't stop telling fantasies, she still loves him. Later, she genuinely worries that he won't survive his fever, then delights when he recovers.
- I Should Write a Book About This: The movie ends with Wilhelm starting to tell some children a story about himself and Jacob.
- In Defence Of Storytelling: The brothers are mocked for collecting folk tales. In the end, they are vindicated when the stories they publish become much more popular than the more "serious" work they do.
- Job Song: "Ah-Oom" is sung by the elves as they do the work of the Cobbler.
- Killed Offscreen: When Ludwig stabs Hans, the scene cuts from Ludwig raising his sword, to the terrified reactions of the kids hearing the story. By the time the movie cuts back to Ludwig and Hans, the former has finished impaling and burying the latter.
- Line-of-Sight Name: Wilhelm names Tom Thumb, Cinderella, Snow White, and Little Red Riding Hood based on their appearances.
- Off with His Head!: Every man who failed to figure out why the Dancing Princess wears out her shoes every night was beheaded by the king's executioner.
- The Queen's Latin: Aside from Jacob (played by Karl Boehm, an actual German actor), every character in Germany speaks with British accents, while the fantasy sequences have British and American accents mixed together.
- Remaster: Warner Bros. and Cinerama, Inc. commissioned a 4K restoration of the camera negatives in 2019, reversing decades of damage and decaynote , subtly improving the special effects, and minimizing the seams between the three panels.
- Secret Path: The Dancing Princess sneaks out of the castle through a door hidden in the throne room.
- Spared by the Adaptation: The Singing Bone brings Hans Back from the Dead after Ludwig complies to the song's demand for an apology. The movie also bowdlerizes Ludwig's punishment for his murder and deception; from death by drowning, to serving Hans for the rest of his life.
- Spelling Song: "Dee-Are-A-Gee-O-En".
- The Storyteller: In the movie, Wilhelm Grimm narrates The Dancing Princess and The Cobbler and the Elves. He collects additional stories from a flower vendor, and from Anna Richter, an old woman who shares such fairy tales as The Singing Bone with children who visit her house in the forest.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Rumpelstiltskin openly hates the name that Wilhelm gives him, unlike the other characters he christens.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: The Singing Bone segment doesn't depict Ludwig and Hans as brothers.
- Widescreen Shot: As a Cinerama film, the film has sequences that make full use of the 2.60:1 ratio that Cinerama uses, such as the ballroom dance.
