For 70 years, Cocoanuts (1929) has had it's picture butchered
by projectionists and video companies who cut off the top and
bottom of the screen. This has happened to many films where
the original ratio is 1.20, not 1.33.

Here's some links that try to explain aspect ratios and
how piss poor the management of Universal Studios, who
cut off the top and bottom of Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers
for home video.

These are great links because they show before and after
pictures, showing just what you are missing when you're
being cheated by the video company or the projectionist.

These excerpts from

https://rjbuffalo.com/The_Cocoanuts.html

"All video copies of The Cocoanuts are missing the top and bottom
of the image. Nobody seems able to see the difference - except for
me. Yes, the Blu-ray is gorgeous, but it is cropped and it still
has the mistakes that we have been seeing for more than 60 years
now. Just because the shape is about 1:1.33 it does not follow
that the entire image was transferred to video. Far from it."

"In nearly a half-century of trying, I have learned that it is
impossible to explain any of the above to anybody who works in
the movie business."

So it is up to us customers to observe and acknowledge
technical defects in what is shown to us.

And there is more about aspect ratios in 2 other articles:

Apertures, Aspect Ratios, Film Formats

https://rjbuffalo.com/apertures.html

Apertures, Aspect Ratios, Film Formats Part 2

https://rjbuffalo.com/filmclips.html

Pluted Pup <plutedpup@outlook.com> wrote:
> For 70 years, Cocoanuts (1929) has had it's picture butchered
> by projectionists and video companies who cut off the top and
> bottom of the screen. This has happened to many films where
> the original ratio is 1.20, not 1.33.
>
> Here's some links that try to explain aspect ratios and
> how piss poor the management of Universal Studios, who
> cut off the top and bottom of Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers
> for home video.
>
> These are great links because they show before and after
> pictures, showing just what you are missing when you're
> being cheated by the video company or the projectionist.
>
> These excerpts from
>
> https://rjbuffalo.com/The_Cocoanuts.html
>
> "All video copies of The Cocoanuts are missing the top and bottom
> of the image. Nobody seems able to see the difference - except for
> me. Yes, the Blu-ray is gorgeous, but it is cropped and it still
> has the mistakes that we have been seeing for more than 60 years
> now. Just because the shape is about 1:1.33 it does not follow
> that the entire image was transferred to video. Far from it."
>
> "In nearly a half-century of trying, I have learned that it is
> impossible to explain any of the above to anybody who works in
> the movie business."
>
> So it is up to us customers to observe and acknowledge
> technical defects in what is shown to us.
>
> And there is more about aspect ratios in 2 other articles:
>
> Apertures, Aspect Ratios, Film Formats
>
> https://rjbuffalo.com/apertures.html
>
> Apertures, Aspect Ratios, Film Formats Part 2
>
> https://rjbuffalo.com/filmclips.html
>
>
>

Having watched Animal Crackers only a few weeks ago, I can attest that you
are correct. At the end of the movie Harpo is being praised as a hero by
the police, when the Rittenhouse silver begins falling from his coat sleeve
and clattering to the floor, a gag just like the Thenardiers’ in Les
Miserables. The problem with the video I was watching was that the sleeve
extended below the bottom of the frame and I could hear the clattering but
I could not see what was causing it at first. Since then I have found a
better transfer, but even so that sleeve opening is almost cut off. A great
Marx Brothers gag is nearly ruined by the video transfer.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog