Quite true. Two versions, a CinemaScope version and a standard 4 x 3 non-anamorphic version were filmed at the same time, just in case CinemaScope didn't take off. Sometimes, the takes were done with both cameras side by side and sometimes, the scene was shot first in CinemaScope and then in the standard format. Other studios that licenced CinemaScope from 20th Century-Fox, such as MGM and Universal International, also shot their CinemaScope films in two separate versions and this went on until 1957, when the studios decided that, as almost all cinemas were then converted for CinemaScope presentations, the filming of secondary versions was no longer necessary. So there were separate non-CinemaScope versions of, among many others, Knights of the Round Table; Moonfleet; Green Fire; Seven Brides For Seven Brothers; The Black Shield of Falworth; Sign of the Pagan; Captain Lightfoot; Valley of Fury and The Tomahawk and The Cross.
Filming two separate versions also led to different camera angles in both versions and to slightly different dialogue, when an actor couldn't remember the exact words of a line he had spoken for a previous take in a separate version. For instance, in the CinemaScope version of "Knights of the Round Table", Felix Aylmer tells Ava Gardner that: "Lancelot is the flame with which Mordred will light up England" and in the standard version, he tells her: "Lancelot is the torch with which Mordred will set England ablaze".
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cstapleton
8 years ago
If you buy the Blu Ray, you can watch the "flat" (4:3) version of it in a small window while the CinemaScope version plays across the entire screen. The sound you get is from the "flat" version of the film.
Every once in a while someone breaks into the screen to discuss something though.
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