The Warner Archive Is Bringing The Herculoids And The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm To DVD In 2011

As I’m sure you’re all well aware, we’re big fans of the Warner Archive here at the CriterionCast. They’ve managed to tap into the hearts and pocketbooks of everyone who has ever stared at the bootleg DVDs at Comic Con, wondering why such and such movie was never officially released.

Over the past year, they’ve expanded their options to include several Hanna Barbera shows that were never made available officially on DVD. Shows like Pirates of Dark Water, The Dukes, Thundarr, the animated Addams Family, and all sorts of Yogi Bear and animated holiday specials have been released through the folks at the Warner Archive. While I’m sure we’ve all experienced those animated series from our youths that didn’t quite live up to the nostalgic heights in our memories, I think we can all agree that it is better to have them available for purchase, than not. All that being said, we have some exciting news, thanks to the fact that the Warner Archive loves leaking out titles on their Facebook wall. Last week, as I was sitting in the airport at JFK, wondering whether the insane snowstorm would break in time for me to get the heck out of the Big Apple, I managed to snap a few screenshots (at the bottom of the page) of some posts that the WAC made, in response to questions on their wall.

It looks like over the next year, we’ll see the likes of The Herculoids, The Robonic Three Stooges, Clue Club, Help! It’s The Hair Bear Bunch, Captain Caveman With The Teenangels, and The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm all available on DVD through the Warner Archive Collection (presumably under their Hanna Barbera line, where appropriate). I’ve gone back and watched some episodes of the Herculoids over the past week, thanks to my older VHS tapes, and I have to say that underneath the layers of cheese the show has, it is a really fun science fiction / fantasy series. The episodes are brief, but action packed. I’m also a big fan of the Alex Toth style of animation, as it evokes the golden age of comics, specifically my memories of Jack Kirby. For all of the kids growing up with shows on Adult Swim, like Harvey Birdman, Sealab, and the Venture Bros, it’s nice to see that they’ll have the opportunity to see the shows that inspired this new generation of animators.

Herculoids

So in addition to the animated series, we’re also likely to see The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm, a George Pal produced Cinerama film which has never seen the light of DVD. I found this pretty interesting, from the Wikipedia article on the film, regarding the state of the prints available for the film:

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm has never been released onto DVD. A previous laserdisc of the film was issued, but the quality of the print used for the laserdisc issue was very poor, and was missing the prologue, overture, entr’acte and walk-out music from the Cinerama roadshow version. The film was also transferred in the incorrect aspect ratio, cutting off the far left and right portions of the image. The original 35 mm 3-panel Cinerama camera negatives were heavily water damaged in a warehouse fire. The film was never transferred to a 70 mm version after it was made, so the only surviving prints are edited 35 mm composite prints. Until recently, the only prints thought to survive were not copies of the original roadshow version, and did not contain all three panels of information. The left area of the A panel and the right area of the C panel were missing from the composite prints. In addition, the color was badly faded. Because of the cost, it is doubtful that there will ever be a restored version of this film.

However, the current version shown on Turner Classic Movies is the full-length version, with all three panels in view’”a version not seen since the film’s 1962 roadshow release, not even on television. Not only does it include an Overture, Entr’acte and Exit Music; it also includes the long-unseen two-minute prologue to the main title. After we see the M-G-M lion roaring and the words “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Cinerama present a George Pal Production”, the scene changes to show two armies firing off cannon furiously, while the announcer says, “Once again, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Europe was torn by the sounds of war. However, if you listen very closely, you might hear another, very different sound”. The camera then pans into the horizon while we hear the soft sounds of quill pens writing on paper. The scene then switches to show Laurence Harvey and Karl Boehm writing busily as the credits come up onscreen.

Unfortunately, the original Cinerama format was designed to be projected onto a huge, deeply-curved screen (146 degrees of arc) that surrounded the audience. The image, even restored, will never look right on a flat home video screen’”no matter how large or clear that screen is. The restored version shown on TCM (and which will eventually be released on dvd, one would assume) has a very odd, “fish-eye lens” appearance, with the far right and far left sections of the combined Cinerama picture appearing significantly stretched and distorted and the center section looking small and distant. It is not a pleasant effect^{[neutrality is disputed]} and one would hope that a version will be created in which the image distortion is digitally corrected. So, in spite of the recent “restoration” this film can only be viewed in anything close to its intended form when screened at one of the small handful of surviving Cinerama theaters left in the country (in Bradford, England; Seattle, Washington; and in Hollywood, California).

The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm

Given this, it’ll be interesting to see how the final product looks on DVD. While the Warner Archive is a print on demand service, they are definitely taking this business seriously, and constantly seeking to provide their customers with the best version of the film / TV series available.

So, in conclusion, what you need to all do is go ‘like” the Warner Archive on Facebook, so you too can get the inside scoop, straight from the folks in charge. Also, because they’re still figuring out what sort of demand there is for older titles, any feedback you send them will be taken seriously, and an offhanded remark about some obscure TV show or movie, that the WAC can get, may actually happen.

The Robonic Three Stooges