8mm Forum: Tom and Jerry Filmed in 'Scope?

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Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on September 28, 2017, 12:57 PM:

I have already trawled through some past posts on this forum looking for the answer, to no avail.

As you know, there are several Tom & Jerry cartoons available as cineavision prints needing the special lens. My question is.... were these cartoons actually shot in a widescreen format or are they academy ratio's which have been altered?

Posted by Guy Badger (Member # 6087) on September 28, 2017, 01:37 PM:

Almost every Hanna-Barbera Tom & Jerry from 1954 was produced in Cinemascope so I presume the Cineavision releases used the original scope prints as a source.

I own the Tom & Jerry Laserdisc box set with all the scope cartoons and it's worth noting that the first four scope T&J's were also produced simultaneously in Academy ratio for use in cinemas that hadn't yet been converted for Cinemascope.

In late 1955 a few more T&J's were produced in Academy ratio only with 'Pecos Pest' being the final Hanna-Barbera T&J in that format.

All the remaining Hanna-Barbera T&J cartoons were produced in Cinemascope only. In total 23 T&J cartoons were produced in Cinemascope - most were 2.35:1 but a few were as wide as 2.55:1.

Hope that helps!

Posted by Melvin England (Member # 5270) on September 28, 2017, 02:45 PM:

Hello Guy,

Thanks for that. It was very informative...... and............ Hello! Long time, no see! Hope you have still got that excellent martial arts film you made with Mark many years ago ?

Posted by Guy Badger (Member # 6087) on September 28, 2017, 06:45 PM:

Hi Melvin! I thought that name seemed familiar. Sadly I don't have 'Dragon Power' or the equally epic 'Star Rabbits'. Mark had both films and he left Hull many years ago.

I think he still works as a projectionist but I haven't been able to track him down - it's been a while since I tried though.

We'll have to catch up some time.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on September 29, 2017, 11:52 AM:

Early on, (starting in 1954, I believe), most of the Tom and Jerry's were released in both academy ratio as well as cinemascope, but this was an obvious need as, it would take a good while for some movie theaters to convert to anamorphic cinemascope. It's actually good fun (if you are Tom and Jerry fan) to look at the differences between the academy and scope versions, as they didn't just "squeeze in" on the scope version, but the flat version was photogrpahed specifically for the academy version.

I consider my collection of Cineavision Tom and Jerry's (as well as the CIneavision Droopys and Magoo's) among my prized possesions and I was at least lucky to find really good prints of them that have held up well, color-wise. The droopys were actually the hardest ones to find, especially "One Droopy knight", which is a very good and funny cartoon.

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