What Ratio Was the 70mm Version of "Gone With The Wind" ?

[Melvin England]

I am a little confused.

I am slowly going through the "extras" of the 4-disc dvd version of Gone With he Wind (not the Blu Ray). Amongst these extras there is a trailer promoting the 70mm release of the film. However, the trailer is in academy ratio.
It got me thinking...... the film was made in academy ratio, so what happened on the 70mm transfer? I can think of three alternatives.
Firstly, the image must have been cropped. Was it cropped to 1.85:1 or 2.25/35:1 ?

OR

Did they just print the film in academy onto the 70mm film so that the projected frame would be bigger than 35mm thus improving the overall image quality?

I appreciate that one reason to use 70mm was to include multi track sound.

I would be very interested in your comments.

(P.S. would have made an excellent IMAX transfer if one had a cake stand big enough!!!)

[Maurice Leakey]

Melvin
Original 4x3 image cropped top and bottom for 70mm. Click below.

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/special/gwtw.htm


Maurice

[Melvin England]

Thank you for that, Maurice. The only word that comes to mind at the moment is........ YUK !

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

Talk about Yuk....

In the late 1970’s there was a 35mm theatrical anamorphic (scope) re-release of GWTW with the top/bottom cropped off. That was the version used for mastering the first LaserDisc (Japanese Import) which was additionally pan & scanned. The preprint material was missing the top/bottom and the mastering chopped off the sides. Talk about yuk.

[Brian Fretwell]

The first DVD of the Carry on series Carry on Camping suffered from a similar problem, but in that case a centre cut out version of the 1.66:1 original, then chopped top and bottom. The Derann version showed more of the original frame.

[Martin Davey]

I remember seeing that trailer, in 70mm, at the MOMI cinema. It looked terrible. Regarding messed up transfers, 'Porthouse Blue' is on catch up 4. It was made in 4x3. The version presented has been stretched to 16:9 which is bad enough but normaly could still be viewed by altering the TV settings. However the image has then been cropped at the sides with black pillars to 4x3! I presume about 33% of the image is lost. I did right to Ch4 about this to no avail.

[Joe McAllister]

The 70mm version was my first time viewing GWTW hampered by the cropping plus grainy muddy visuals and poor quality sound. Saw it 35mm some time later better grading but still cropped with poor sound. of the original cut and titles. Both versions Suffered from redone titles and re-edited sequences.The 16&35mm tv prints For the first tv broadcast in the late 70's were better. Martin Scorsese is said to have a mint IB 35 Of the original cut and titles.

[Oliver Feld]

Melvin
Years ago I‘ve bought some frames from GWTW at eBay because (as a fan of this masterpiece) I wanted to hold some of this legendary 70mm print in my hands.
Here is it and You can compare it with the original ratio from 1939.

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Talk about Yuk....

In the late 1970’s there was a 35mm theatrical anamorphic (scope) re-release of GWTW with the top/bottom cropped off. That was the version used for mastering the first LaserDisc (Japanese Import) which was additionally pan & scanned. The preprint material was missing the top/bottom and the mastering chopped off the sides. Talk about yuk.

If my calculation is correct, that's about no more than 30-32% remaining of the original content.🤮
Very, very Yuk by any standard...