I would like to  thank Mr. Thompson for his informative response regarding
the TCM presentations of "Brothers Grimm" and "How the West...." . Since
these films were reduced to a smaller anamorphic format for non-Cinerama
theatres, it makes sense that those prints would be easier to restore for tv
purposes...But I still wish that someone could prepare a sample of the
original format just to show audiences how it worked. (TCM does excellent
'behind'the'scenes" features, so perhaps a short on the history of Cinerama
would be of interest....)
By the way, you can pass on to anyone at TCM that my remarks about Cinerama
were in no way meant as a criticism. In fact, I would single out TCM as the
most consistently reliable source for letterboxed copies of films  and a
great resource all of us interested in film and film history. (American Movie
Classics treats letterboxing as anugly stepchild locked in the attic,
limiting their widescreen version to the wee hours of the night or in some
cases not bothering with them; even the Independent Film Channel is
inconsistent in their respect for proper ratios)

Robert Hunt

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