Aspect Ratio: Missing bits of films

The so-called “academy aspect” ratio of films (1:37) was a boundary that filmmakers soon wanted to go beyond. Silent films such as Napoleon were conceived in part or in their entirety in widescreen.

The early sound film “The Bat Whispers” was also shot in a new short-lived widescreen process called Magnifilm.

As is often the case, several versions of these films exist, and some are lost, probably forever.

When a new process was developed, the first films shot in that format were often shot with another camera in the aspect ratio to make sure that they could be distributed in any theater or medium.

Such was the case for “The Bat Whispers” in the thirties and, in the fifties, for the first Cinemascope movie “The Robe”, as well as the first Walt Disney animated Cinemascope feature “Lady And The Tramp”. Fortunately, since Cinemascope and television were launched and marketed at about the same time (Cinemascope actually being the industry’s response to the success of television), the academy ratio versions were all the more needed for the film’s sale and subsequent broadcast on television.

When these films were first released on home video, 1:37 versions came in handy again. But some editions featured a pan and scan version of the widescreen version which meant a double loss of footage : not only the the academy ratio version was put aside, but more than half of the frame of the Cinemascope version was also lost. Check out the comparison between the different versions in this review.

Other formats such as Paramount’s Vistavision meant a loss of information in the frame, because it was so conceived. Vistavision films were supposed to be matted at the top and bottom of the frame so that the resulting image would be widescreen. The superior quality of the film made up for the "blow-up" effect needed to convert it to widescreen.

In the film Silk Stockings, Fred Astaire and Janis Paige sang ironically about the craze going on at the time when the widescreen process was advertised as more important than the stars or even the story. Here is the sequence:

Blu-ray helped to restore lost footage from some of the most famous films. Yet VHS helped to show footage that is not seen anymore

In this scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, shot in the Vistavision process, you can see that the scene was designed to be matted. This unrestored copy features the top of the frame where you can see that James Stewart's fake car does not have a top. This is not so much a goof as it was not intended to be shown that way. In that particular case, the "loss" of film is understandable. But being able to see it is quite informative.

The same thing can be said about many scenes in North by Northwest where the lights and studio stage are plainly visible in the Mount Rushmore scene if the image is not matted as intended.
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