Why are the opening credits cropped on 'Married to the Mob'? (1 Viewer)

[Frank@N]

I got around to watching this last night and the opening credits were clearly cropped on the top and bottom.

The 16x9 transfer is actually pretty good for a 1988 movie, but the copping is a problem that probably affects the entire film.

I flipped over the disc and everything looks fine on the 1.33 side (credits and otherwise).

IMdb says this was shot in 1.85, so why would the credits be formatted in 1.33?

Trivia note: This film did something I haven't seen before, it used silent deleted scenes running behind the credits at the end of the movie. You can only imagine what might have been going on...

 

[Mark-P]

I'm guessing the movie was probably filmed open-matte intended to be matted to 1.85:1 theatrically. It's possible that this transfer might be slightly zoomed in resulting in cropped credits. OR possibly the opening credits are designed such that they go right near the edges of the frame and the overscan on your TV is cropping them. Trying playing the disc on a computer to see if that is the case. Generally when credits go that close to the frame edges, the transfer technician will windowbox the credits to avoid overscan cropping.

 

[Frank@N]

The credits extend way beyond the 16x9 area, alot more than overscan I think.

My guess is they prepared an open-matte full-screen transfer for TV broadcast with adjusted (bigger) credits to utilize the 1.33 area.

Then they decided to do a DVD and just grabbed the 1.85 section from the 1.33 transfer (with some funky after-effects).

Strange...

Edit: If I can figure out how to put a screen shot here, I will.

 

[Frank@N]

OK, don't know how to a screen shot here.

On my PC there is slight cropping, but nowhere near what my TV/player is doing.

I'll have to investigate this...Thanks.