"Fake" widescreen? (1 Viewer)

[Derek Miner]

I can't speak to "Pink Flamingos" or "Evil Dead," but I never was happy with Kevin Smith's feeling that "Clerks" looked fine at 1.85 when originally shot in 16mm full frame. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. You can at least see the original framing on Disc 2 of the 10th anniversary disc. They also ran into a proper framing issue with "Chasing Amy" for the reasons you state - the work was done by someone at a studio who didn't know or care about the way it was supposed to be.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Yellow Submarine has to be matted to 1.66:1 because there's a lot of shots with cel edges and incomplete ink/paint on the top and bottom if you see the 1988 video (on LD or VHS). The submarine suddenly appears about half an inch from the top. One shot has a hovering Ringo, with no ink/paint work below his waist. Right AR, but maybe it's misframing (image is shifted too high).

Also, A Hard Day's Night has moments of mistakes resulting from leaving off the mattes. The MPI DVD crops a good bit off the sides, for example. During the last concert bit (She Loves You), you can see the studio ceiling above the BEATLES sign. When shown in 1.66:1, the ceiling just happens to go away. Maybe Miramax should have moved the frame a bit upwards (given their track history, it wouldn't be too surprising if they didn't make sure it was correct).

After all, a lot of remasters of films end up showing previous editions were not framed right. Consider how Universal's Hitchcock remasters in their 15-disc set all have the frame shifted down or up more than the previous ones. Paramount's remastered To Catch a Thief reveals that the previous DVD cropped too much on the bottom and didn't crop enough on the top (as VistaVision films tend to be cropped much more on the top since lots of headroom was kept).

 

[jim_falconer]

You can add "Jet Pilot" to this thread as well. Filmed in 1949 at the industry standard 1.37 to 1 aspect, and released by Universal on Laserdisc in the 90s at 1.33 to 1; it was put out onto DVD in a matted 1.85 to 1 aspect.

A real shame, to say the least.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Well, it was released in 1957 in SuperScope (2.00:1), so Universal probably didn't do their homework despite it actually being accurate for the original release format. They also opt to keep a lot of 1953-1958 films unmatted without realizing they should be. One reason why people like Mr. Furmanek should be hired bystudios to point out this stuff!

 

[Brian Kidd]

Just to add my two cents, I have a couple of points of discussion to bring up. (This is a great post about a favorite film of mine, btw.)

1) The common AR for films made and released in the UK at the time was 1.66:1. This seems to support the case for the matting. I concur that nothing I have read or heard about this film suggests it was made for anything other than a theatrical release. I think the confusion may have arisen from the fact that Al Brodax, the Producer, also made the Beatles TV cartoon series.

2) The obvious gaffes such as torso-less Ringo and popping submarines could very well have been due to the extremely rushed production schedule. This was a film where the final reel was practically still wet when it premiered. On the current DVD, several folks talk about how they had to hire several shifts of animators to work round-the-clock in order to come in on time. There really wasn't any time for quality control. Frankly, with all I've read about the chaos surrounding this film, it's a freakin' miracle that it turned out to be even watchable, much less the classic that a lot of folks view it as today.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

I'd bet if I was at the concert I would have seen the studio ceiling too.

 

[ScottR]

Paramount's Romeo and Juliet is not cropped correctly either. They should have gone with a 1.66:1 ratio and made sure the framing was correct.