Hell’s Angels 4K UHD (1930)

[BluPat]

Excellent announcement! More Jean Harlow! Day 1!

What is the 'magnascope version'? Wasn't this filmed with a 2-strip Technicolor sequence of Jean?

[sherlockjr]

Originally Posted by BluPat

Excellent announcement! More Jean Harlow! Day 1!

What is the 'magnascope version'? Wasn't this filmed with a 2-strip Technicolor sequence of Jean?

Magnascope wasn't a separate film process, but rather using a larger screen, a higher magnification lens, and cropping the film in the projector to show a larger image at certain key/spectacular moments.

This is effectively what was done to achieve non-anamorphic widescreen in the 1950s and thereafter: larger screen, shorter focal length lens, crop the image top and bottom to take the projected image from 1.37:1 to a larger and wider 1.85 (or 1.75 or 1.66).

I'm guessing what Criterion will do is enlarge the image on the screen at certain key moments (aerial dogfights?) and make it 1.66 or whatever seems appropriate. I've seen a re-created Magnascope screening of a nitrate print of PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948) where the final 10 minute or so reel of a massive storm was enhanced with tinting, toning, and enlarged in Magnascope style. It definitely had an impact after the preceding 80 minutes of smaller 1.37.

I've never seen Magnascope simulated on disk, though.

The process itself was relatively simple. For select scenes, the projectionist would use a short focal length ‘Magnascope’ lens to substantially enlarge the 1.33:1 image, cropping away some portion along the top and bottom of the frame. The Magnascope image would fill the theater’s proscenium, using an enlarged screen that was about four times bigger than the regular one. (Even in picture palaces that sat thousands, screens were typically no wider than 20 or 22 feet before Magnascope.) Magnascope had no fixed aspect ratio—a theater would have shown the Magnascope scenes as wide as its proscenium would permit, probably somewhere around 1.63:1 to judge by contemporary sketches. While the projector switched to Magnascope, stagehands would slowly open up the screen masking, which gave the illusion of a gradually enlarging image.

Lots of detailed historical and technical details here. (This sort of technical history really interests me!).

https://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/2...02/magnascope/