I'm suffering from anamorphism (1 Viewer)

[RobR]

What's wrong with me! I've gotten so used to activating the squeeze mode on my WEGA that when I got Seven Samurai Criterion Collection from Netflix, I unintentionally switched on the 16:9 Enhanced function before watching it. I managed to view the entire film in the incorrect aspect ratio before realizing that a movie made in the 1950s can't possibly be letterboxed. The funny thing is I obviously didn't notice any distorted images while watching it. Luckily for me, a friend came to visit me the next day and he wanted to see the movie, so I rewatched it in its correct aspect ratio.

By the way, Seven Samurai is a great movie! 3 hours and 45 minutes just flew by. On the other hand, I had to struggle through Harry Potter, which isn't even as long.

 

[Christian Dolan]

Actually, some of the more well-known widescreen processes started to appar in the fifties, mainly to compete with tv.

-Christian

 

[Steve_Ch]

Go ahead and buy a copy of Seven Samurai, I watched it in a theater in the early 60s and thought it was long, since then, I probably watched the movie at least 10 times in the last 30 some years (in theaters, VHS, DVD), and it just keep getting better.

I thought Harry Potter was long, but I also think it's quite rich, and it's one of those that I plan to get a copy as soon as it's on DVD, it may be a "better watch alone at home without distraction" type of movie.

 

[Ernest]

Knights of the Round Table shot in 1954 with Robert Taylor was the first "widescreen" movie, hollywoods way of competing with TV.

 

[RicP]

Knights of the Round Table shot in 1954 with Robert Taylor was the first "widescreen" movie,

Nope. Link Removed was shot in CinemaScope and was released in 1953.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Actually, Hollywood was experimenting with various aspect ratios back in the silent era, and 1.37:1 didn't become standard until the days of synchronized sound, when it became necessary to add an optical soundtrack to the film. 1930s there were a few films advertised as widescreen (at least according to some posters I've seen), and the anamorphic lenses that would become important in the '50s dated from this period. (One of the newer widescreen processes, I forget which, got its start when a studio employee found some old anamorphic lenses collecting dust in a warehouse and tried them out to see what they did, IIRC.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Larry Sutliff]

. 1930s there were a few films advertised as widescreen

The 1930 film THE BAT WHISPERS was shot in 2:35:1 and on 70mm film. It's actually available on DVD(along with an Academy Ratio version shot simultaneously) from Milestone Home Video.

 

[SteveGon]

Larry, thanks for the heads-up on The Bat Whispers. I've never seen it and never bothered looking it up because I'd heard that it's terrible. I wasn't aware that it was shot in widescreen. I guess it's worth a look, if only out of curiosity to see a 1930 widescreen movie!

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Whispers. I've never seen it and never bothered looking it up because I'd heard that it's terrible.

Steve,

The movie has remarkable miniatures, especially for 1930, and a couple of nice camera setups. But once the film settles in on the old house setting it does become a real bore. It's worth seeing once but it's nothing to write home about. Being a completist when it comes to thirties horror films I have to have a copy in my collection but I would recommend a rental if at all possible.