The Amazon website doesn't have much technical info on the upcoming DVD, but Barne's and Noble lists it as being Pan and Scan. Anybody know if this is true, or is the film native 4:3?
The high and the Mighty is being released in widescreen.
Since this movie was released in 1953, it probably is only available in full-screen format. Widescreen movies didn't start to appear on a regular basis until 1954.
shareYou can check right on this site, in the Technical Specs for the movie...it is 1.37:1, i.e. Full Frame.
share I bought the DVD and it is in full screen format, but don't let that scare you from buying the movie. As it says on the DVD box, the film has been "restored and remastered," and it looks that way. No scratches and black and white movies have rarely looked better.
"I don't mean to be a sore loser, but if when it's over, I'm dead, kill him." Butch Cassidy
The contrast and crispness of the film on DVD is outstanding. For a 50+ year old film it looks pristine.
The restorers did an outstanding job, which must have taken a considerable amount of time. The sound has also been restored to a full fidelity.
Excellent job all around on the DVD
This is apparent from the opening titles. The frame was shrunk slightly to remove the slight loss from the normal overscan on TV.
Also it is mentioned in extra material on the "The High and the Mighty" DVD, that it a year later pioneered the wide screen movie format.
It's easy enough to compress the frame to a 16 x 9 format on your screen, or video projector.
I do that routinely in my video room when I watch films on the LCD projector. Looks great in either viewing mode.
Also it is mentioned in extra material on the "The High and the Mighty" DVD, that it a year later pioneered the wide screen movie format.
"The Robe" was not the first widescreen movie: it was the first CinemaScope movie. There had been occasional widescreen movies before 1953. After "The Robe" 20th Century Fox released 3 more CinemaScope movies by the end of 1953 and MGM released 1.
"Island in the Sky" was filmed using the then Academy Standard aspect ratio of 1.37:1, so there would be no reason for a "pan and scan" version on video.
I didn't say The Robe was the first widescreen movie. It has been credited as the first widescreen by sources such as widescreen.org
http://www.widescreen.org/aspect_ratios.shtml
Excuse me for talking while you're interrupting.
John Wayne's first widescreen movie was 1930's THE BIG TRAIL.
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As a former telecine assist operator, I can tell you that 1:37 film was pretty easy to transfer to a 1.33 format. A pan & scan transfer required editorial and artistic decisions by the telecine operator, usually without the supervision of the director or cinematographer, and often without input from anyone from a studio. What really got to me was that consumers could often not be convinced that pan & scan was worse that a film letterboxed for a 4:33 monitor. They felt they were getting shortchanged if the screen wasn't completely filled. I guess you can't cure stupid.
Later on, I performed some digital restoration work. Often I and others felt the work was overdone, as ordered by the studios. Taking every film defect away seem to make them look too "flat". Leaving some film defects gives a film some depth. A lot of the work was strangely driven by bloggers that criticized every little speck of positive or negative dirt. It all depended on how many hours a studio would allow a post house to bill. And when a studio would pull out all the stops, like on "Lawrence of Arabia", the results could be breathtaking.