The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) now with 2025 Hammer Editions

[oddbox83]

That was a misunderstanding because "common top" which is what the matte card indicated is a largely forgotten matting method before widescreen ratio standardisation. Basically, whatever ratio you crop to, you keep the top of the frame the same and crop the bottom of the 1.66:1 frame, probably all the way to from 1.75:1 though 1.85:1. To clarify, you crop centrally to 1.66:1, any wider extraction just crops further off the bottom and not the top.

[ptb2010]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

That was a misunderstanding because "common top" which is what the matte card indicated is a largely forgotten matting method before widescreen ratio standardisation. Basically, whatever ratio you crop to, you keep the top of the frame the same and crop the bottom of the 1.66:1 frame, probably all the way to from 1.75:1 though 1.85:1. To clarify, you crop centrally to 1.66:1, any wider extraction just crops further off the bottom and not the top.

By 1957 virtually every cinema in the world had converted to show Cinemascope, so non Scope movies were shown with 1.85:1 masking in place.