A Christmas Story, WS or PS (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Scott]

I was going to pick this up today at Wal-Mart and noticed it said formated to fit your screen. What is the original OAR and is it available in WS. Amazon has it listed as formated and not widescreen. Is a widescreen version available? Thanks. I really love this movie and want to get WS if it's available.
Scott

 

[RobertR]

It's not available in WS on DVD. This has been a sore spot with a lot of people for a long time.
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[Greg_Y]

The DVD is not widescreen. It's open matte. And the transfer is junk. There's this heat ripple effect in parts of the film. Not terribly distracting but it's there and, when you see it once, you'll see it every time. This film certainly deserves better.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I have to 100% agree with Greg- there is an odd ripple effect that is present throught the entire film. The transfer is god-awful even without the horrid distortion.
It looks like the optical they used for the ripple effects for dream sequences was left on for a large portion of the film- so every once in a while the water will shift and the entire image ripples in an odd lurch.
The film was projected widescreen in theaters- the DVD is modified.
All in all, the disc is horrible. The first DVD I bought (and to be honest, the only film I thought I would ever care about owning)... and after seeing that thing, it's a wonder I kept my dvd player at all, and now have 500+ titles.

Vince
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[Jim Robbins]

"Oh fudge"

 

[David Tallen]

While I don't disagree with the comments of the others, if this movie is a favorite, and unless there is some news about a new widescreen transfer being offered soon, I would say go ahead and buy it.
Regarding the open matte presentation, though an unfortunate choice considering that it is not the OAR, it need not interfere with your enjoyment of this particular movie. It's not as if we were talking about Lawrence of Arabia; this is a family film taking place in the 40's. Academy ratio probably would have been a more appropriate choice to begin with.
Regarding the poor transfer, I can honestly say that I've never even noticed it. I think that is because I never watched this movie with a critical eye towards the technical aspects of it. Your brain will take care of smoothing over a lot of bad quality, if you don't concentrate on it. Without too much effort, you can convince yourself that a movie taking place in the 40's is supposed to look bad.
All kidding aside, I think you will like it.

 

[Kajs]

A "movie from the 40s" isn't supposed to look like its being shown on a bedsheet in the wind.
My advice...watch it 1,000 times on TBS this season, it looks better.

 

[Craig Robertson]

i have to agree with Greg and Vince. the transfer is so poor that it's hardly an upgrade from VHS. without OAR, there is very little reason to recommend the current DVD release.

 

[Craig S]

The sad thing is, Warner can put this thing back out on shelves every Christmas season and tons of folks who got their first DVD player that year will pick it up. There's no incentive for them to redo it.

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