Lee Pfeiffer notes the "inspired cast" and finds the film "mildly amusing" Overall, he says the film "clearly belongs" to Burl Ives, who is "genuinely amusing" as a genie trying to learn how to live in the 20th century and "dominates every scene he is in". Craig Butler calls "The Brass Bottle" a "silly and fairly predictable comedy, the kind that Hollywood was making in the early 1960s before it figured out that people were more and more getting this kind of fluff on television, where it was more at home." While not a great comedy, it is "pleasant, amiable and diverting".