A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Burl Ives as a genie named Fakrash. He is released from an ancient Kum Kum bottle by former Paris beatnik Tony Randall, who is now struggling along in the suburbs as an unsuccessful architect. Naturally the genie causes trouble ("This isn't Baghdad, this is Pasadena!"), but the gags in Oscar Brodney's musty screenplay are right off an assembly line of bad jokes. Family film from Universal is too talky, really, to engage children (to say nothing of their parents), though Ives, Randall and Edward Andrews (and Barbara Eden as Randall's fiancée) work hard to buoy the familiar scenario. Adapted from a book by F. Anstey, this was the inspiration for Eden's forthcoming TV series, "I Dream of Jeannie". ** from ****

Produced by the new Universal in the swingin' 60's, this is a throwback to the type of pictures they had done in the 1940's. You remember, those colorful adventure fantasies with exotic performers like Maria Montez, Sabu, Turhan Bey and Jon Hall. Now there's equally exotic performers-Tony Randall, Barbara Eden, Edward Andrews, and the most exotic of them all, Burl Ives. Big Daddy puts away his stetson and replaces them with ancient Arabic clothing as he gets out of the titled brass bottle (imprisoned centuries before by King Solomon the Wise) and freed by Randall who is anxious to prove that what he hoped was an antique was not, as suggested, made in Japan. Engaged to the future Jeannie, Randall keeps messing up in her father Edward Andrews' eyes, and after losing his job thanks to Ives' interference, creates more tension with his father- in-law to be. The sensual atmosphere of the 1960's mixes with the camp comedy of the 1940's to create a fun family film.Randall's a charming leading man, especially trying on a girdle, but it is Ives of course who ends up the scene stealer. He's the Edmund Gwenn and Cecil Kellaway of the 60's, adding the genie to Gwenn's Santa Claus and Kellaway's leprechaun of fantasy characters. There will be much curiosity over Eden involved in this project considering her involvement with another brass bottle just a few years later. It really does seem like a combination of "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Bewitched" episodes, especially by mixing business into the pleasure.

I first watched this movie in the theater when it came out and have wanted to see it again ever since. When I saw that it was available on DVD I rushed my order in and have watched it four times since receiving it. Burl Ives is perfect as the Genie FakRash Alamash, and Tony Randall makes the perfect foil for his chicanery.Barbara Eden is beautiful, and as others have noted, this movie was no doubt her passport to her role in "My Favorite Genie." Edward Andrews gave one of his usual great performances as the father of her character.My favorite scene was the dinner party that Randall gave for his fiancé and her parents when the Genie FakRash converted his home into an Arabian Nights style magical palace, complete with exotic foods and slaves, and featuring the incredible belly dancing of Lulu Porter. I still laugh out loud every time I see Edward Andrews reaction to the eyes of lamb roasted in honey.This is a movie that everyone should see and enjoy. It came out about the same time as "Bell, Book and Candle," a comedy about witchcraft featuring James Stewart and Kim Novak. Maybe themes of magic and spells were reflective of the mood of America in that post war time of ease and a booming economy.

The Brass Bottle, which I thought was quite entertaining, was obviously the basis for the "I Dream of Jeannie" television series, but one thing I liked that was in the movie that wasn't really dealt with in the television show was that the genie utilized his ability to see the future to his master's advantage. This was particularly amusing when it came to the confident efforts of the genie in the management of his master's investments. When I watched "I Dream of Jeannie", I always wondered whether Jeannie could tell the future, and if so, why she didn't use that ability to help her master. It really seems to me that had she done so, it would have made a great television series even better.