widescreen
Anyone ever see a widescreen dvd available???
sharethere wasn't any "widescreen" formats at that time
shareso what r u saying??? old films can't be released on DVD in widescreen the way they were originally shot???
shareWidescreen was created around 1952, 1953 (I'm not sure, but "The Rope" was one of the first movies in Widescreen). Before that, the format was "full screen". That's the way they were originally shot.
sharethanks...I feel kinda silly now, because I have been told this years ago, but forgot. For some strange reason I remember seeing old films in letterbox...
shareHello, friends.
May I please clear up your widescreen misimpressions. "The ROBE"-- the religious epic about Christ's robe that made a star of Richard Burton-- was the first CinemaScope (2:35-1 aspect ratio) in late 1953. (Hitchcock's "Rope" was released in 1:33-1 full-screen format several years earlier.)
Actually the first film made in the CinemaScope process (invented by a Frenchman but acquired by 20th Century Fox) was the comedy "How To Marry a Millionaire"-- that starred Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable. Fox decided that releasing the religious spectacle would bring a more "serious" tone to the debut of CinemaScope.
Actually there were several experimental films in a widescreen process in earlier years. The best known I would think is a western, "The Big Trail," released in the early 1930s. It stars an unknown John Wayne. Like the widescreen process, the Duke would have to wait a number of years before hitting the big time.
May I suggest visiting www.widescreenmuseum.com for a fascinating and detailed thoroughly illustrated history of wide screen cinema in many interesting formats like the three-projector Cinerama and the very popular today 1:85-1 ratio of Vista-Vision.
Enjoy!!
Needless to say, "The Little Foxes," one of my favorite films, was not a "widescreen" film.
Just to be all nit-picky---early Cinemascope pictures were shot in a 2.55:1 ratio. The width was slightly reduced later to 2.35:1, to allow more room on the film print for an optical soundtrack.
share