MovieChat Forums > Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) Discussion > widescreen is actually fullscreen with t...

widescreen is actually fullscreen with top and bottom cut off??

posted 17 years ago by exodus_laughing
3 replies | jump to latest

from trivia section: "The widescreen version is actually the regular full screen version but with the top and bottom blacked out. This is proven in the scene were the kids are watching Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. For the scene were a woman with a shopping cart is running from an over-sized tomato, the board with rollers the tomato is sitting on is cut off. As is the shot of Elvira's Elvis t-shirt when she suddenly sits-up from her nightmare."

and theyre right!!
DAMNIT!!
did someone toss out the original reels or something??
i knew i shoulda just bought the vhs..
but my old copy wore out and i thought a dvd would be better... ... but.....
oh well.. the dvd WAS only 5 dollars.. lol!..... though i could have bought two vhs versions for that price... kept one in a ziploc bag or something....

but of course.. that would be completely insane.

...

.....

uhh..

[–] VinnieRattolle 17 years ago

Well, there's one of two explanations here. The first is the most common with films from the era... Instead of cropping the sides of a picture for a film that doesn't fit on TV, they open up the top and bottom of the frame, which wasn't meant to be seen. By example, the first "Porky's" jumps to mind. In the theatrical (and widescreen DVD print), there wasn't much full frontal nudity. But there's a considerable amount on the television print. Frequently films from the '70s and '80s were re-formatted like that for TV, making microphones and other things visible that should have been off-camera. So when a widescreen print is later viewed, people mistakenly think the film's been cropped.

The other explanation is that it was an NBC production. Perhaps it was filmed in full-screen and improperly formatted for DVD.

[–] worldofbong 17 years ago

I'd guess the original VHS was simply open matted. If they chopped off the sides and then matted it AGAIN, I think it would look pretty ridiculous all the way through.. to the OP: remember most movies are shot 4:3 (full frame) and then matted later in post production, the only time they're not is when they're shot anamorphic, which is where they use special lenses to squeeze an even wider screen onto a frame of film, and then stretch it out later in post.

Chuck Norris Cartoon Music Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-JphygYybU

[–] exodus_laughing 17 years ago

ah.. well in that case i would have preferred the original fullscreen.... or.... original vhs... whatever..
i just know there are things i miss seeing from the top and bottom of the screen.