I just felt the need to call out this howler on behalf of professional projectionists everywhere. If they're doing their job right, they will examine the film and project it at the correct ratio, unless they're missing the necessary equipment. In the 60s particularly, projectionists were adept at accommodating a whole range of aspect ratios, and Academy was an absolutely bog-standard ratio that they would have been projecting all the time (revivals, short subjects and so forth), so the notion that it was some exotic, unheard-of thing is ridiculous. As is the idea that a professional projectionist would thread up a print and then be shruggingly stuck with whatever happened to come out the business end of the projector.EddieLarkin wrote:Yes, I agree it's definitely possible. Though it bothers me that regardless of the circumstances, the crew is still composing for a ratio that few people back home will actually see, and practically no one in the States will see.
The problematic projection ratio for US cinemas was European widescreen (1.66), not 1.33, and that was most likely a combination of lack of equipment (since screens that were 99% dedicated to Hollywood product would seldom be screening films in that ratio) and the idea that local widescreen (1.85) was near enough.