Cinemascope

Anyone catch that cute little promo with the penguins, on ABC at the top of the hour?

lol, that's 2001 for you come to life! Now we can all shudder collectively at the prospect of "Windows Vista".

That's amazing, hard to believe it took that long before the movie could be shown again in Germany.

Ah interesting channel, I should call up and see if it's worth getting.

I should be getting the re-mastered Universal Home Video DVD in a few more days. How interesting and ironic, the DVD will come with a Robert Osborne introduction, yet I just saw the film on TCM, without a RO introduction, lol

What's interesting is that now we're seeing the whole thing over again with television sets. TV's used to be basically the same as the Academy ratio. Now they're closer to 1.85:1 of regular widescreen (non-anamorphic). With the old-style TVs, you have to "letterbox" widescreen movies. With the newer HDTV sets, you have movies filmed in Academy ratio being shown with black bars on the sides. The more things change, the more they stay the same?

So, Fred, I'm curious, in your opinion, which of the video versions of GWTW do you think comes closest to what the movie looked like in theater screens in 1939?

It was a match made in heaven... in Hollywood heaven, at least

I can more than understand, Melanie, I think without a TiVo the ceremony would be unbearable... at least with it you can zip past the commercials and the boring parts... and oh well, present-day Hollywood is an entirely different thing than during the Golden Era, but I'll be darned if I'm not a sucker for it at least once a year.

Aye, I TiVo'd it last time it showed, the cast is sweet -- Cyd, Ricardo, Esther, Peter Lawford, Jimmy Durante, Xavier Cougat. Do you think Ricardo was a better dancer than Peter?

Well, I guess I don't have to tell you that if you liked the comic strips, you'll be in much better position to appreciate these unique French movies. I've not watched them properly, but a quick glance just to check the DVD's were OK leads me to the strong suspicion that the Cleopatra movie is quite a bit superior to the Caesar one (which was the first one). Also, the original is only available dubbed on the UK market, whereas the sequel allows you to choose subtitled or dubbed versions.

Ah, but how often do they show foreign-language movies for the "Essentials"? Of course, if they did do so on a regular basis, there are too many movies that should be included, anything from Potemkin to Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources.

Yes, it can be funny. I see Gene Kelly as kinda cute, but not sexy.

Well the chopping off would be due to it being shown in a 1.85:1 ratio, as Izcutter pointed out. I'm sure it must be possible to blow up a movie shot in Academy ratio and keep the proper ratio, although I don't recall any specific example... Also Izcutter said that this print was Eastmancolor, right?

Well, Japan *is* supposed to be region 2, but there are a number of reasons why a Japanese DVD might play without any trouble in your U.S.-bought DVD player... many of those reasons are listed in this entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code

What awesome photos! Thank you!

What makes you think you're "breaking it to me"?

Totally agree, re Melanie -- but movie goers sometimes expect bravado, not subtlety!

That's a great movie, too!

Maybe not the movie, but I'd certainly say she stole all the scenes she was in!

I (heart) Hattie McDaniel!

Ah, well, show biz is a bit unpredicatable, isn't it? One small quibble -- and this is only about the CG's that preceded the showing of the movie: they said the movie was nominated for "Best Screenplay - Arthur Edeson". As anyone who's watched Casablanca more than a few times, you'd instantly recognize the name of Mr. Edeson as a cinematographer, not a screenwriter. And yes, the imdb.com quickly confirmed that All Quiet on the Western Front was nominated for its cinematography -- as well as for "writing achievement".

Awesome, I hope I can check it out sometime soon

Well, when you gotta dash, u gotta dash.

Is it on DVD?