It is beyond me why this fine western is not offered in DVD widescreen while other garbage is .
sharehi,
To get straight to the point, the film was shot in the academy ratio of 1.33:1/1.37:1-black & white. So, the current full-screen release is indeed presented in the correct aspect ratio, althought judging from reviews it could do with an additional print clean-up.
R
There was no "wide-screen" in 1950, when this film came out.
shareBingo. Hollywood didn't start regularly using Cinemascope and other widescreen systems until 1953. No Hollywood movie made before 1953 is in "scope" format.
shareThe Big Trail (1930) John Wayne was shot in 70mm widescreen, although that is not the version that is on DVD. Two different versions were made the other shorter version was what was released on DVD. The longer 70mm widescreen version was shown on AMC several years ago.
shareThe Big Trail was shot in 70mm,but it was a huge box office flop,and pretty much killed off interest in wide screen processes until the early Fifties, when the need to compete against Television drove Hollywood to a number of gimmicks to draw people back to theaters, of which only the various widescreen processes had a major impact and became standard in the film industry.
But this did not start until "The Robe" in 1953,a few years after "Winchster 73" came out.
As mentioned,the current DVD has the right film ratio aspect,but the film could use a digital clean up.
Just a little additional information about THE BIG TRAIL. It is now available in widescreen on dvd. I bought a copy on Amazon about a year ago.
shareVidor's Billy The Kid, dating from the 30's, was shot in widescreen (prints of this version are no longer in circulation)
"It's too short!
We need more monkeys! "