there's a nice looking streaming version on Netflix and Amazon, but the image is letterboxed (black bars across top and bottom) to make widescreen. Imdb shows the movie is suppose to be fullscreen which is how TV broadcasts have been (showing more vertical picture). Was the TV versions open matte, and the film really suppose to be shown as widescreen?
shareThis is an intriguing question. Especially since The Neanderthal Man was released several months before The Robe, the Cinemascope spectacular which started the wide-screen movement. The Neaderthal Man does appear to have been designed to be displayed at the 1.85:1 ratio seen in the near flawless Timeless Media Group DVD. Otherwise heads would have been chopped by the matte and other awkward scenes would occur. You can't just turn any 1.37:1 picture into wide screen by masking. It has to be filmed with redundant space at the top and bottom, and the objects and action important to the scene need to be horizonally centered across the screen. If so filmed for wide screen TNM was probably released open matte so that theaters lacking wide screens (which would have been most in 1953) could display it at 1.37:1, while those wishing to have it wide screen could do so with a projector mask. This is the earliest movie so designed I have seen, though Paramont's Shane was supposedly displayed widescreen in a few theaters so equipped in 1953.
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He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45
right after TMG released the movie, it was released from Screamfactory on blu-ray (?!) as 1.37 with "Beast from Hollow Mountain." Looks like they'd have to mask from the bottom for widescreen.
Review
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Neanderthal-Man-Blu-ray/84408/#Review
"...blu-ray (?!)..."
I aquired The Neaderthal Man on a nicely restored DVD with three other 1950's Si-Fi movies for $6.95 from a clearing house. It would take a very pretty, charming girl to sell me a blu-ray of that turkey.
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He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45
It looks to me very much as if it were shot for Academy ratio, 1.37:1.
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