…oh, no, wait, it's the aforementioned. That is, Frank Tashlin's Susan Slept Here, 1954. A weird one, not just because of the whole "she's-seventeen-years-old" thing. Obviously. Not major Tashlin, but thoroughly worthwhile, and as you can see, the transfer is aces.
That screen capture of Dick Powell is the single scariest thing I’ve seen this year. Yes, I mostly think of him as the leading man in the Busby Berkley musicals, but still…
What’s the aspect ratio on this one – the Warner Archive site says “widescreen” but TCM aired it last week in 1.37:1 (and IMDB says 1.37:1 as well)?
I saw this projected in a Tashlin retro a few years ago, and it was definitely in 1.37:1. And even though I remember the movie being narrated by an Academy Award, I’d forgotten that dream sequence entirely. Weird.
The disc is 1.66, which actually looks great on my display. That ratio falls into my “too uncommon to be a mistake” category, mentally, but of course you never really know. The screen grab at top suggests that the wider frame is in fact correct—cropped to 1.37 the cage wouldn’t be so prominently featured, necessarily.
Much to my surprise, Wikipedia reveals that this was Musuraca’s last film. Did he do anything else in color?
DEVIL’S CANYON is in color. That’s about it.
Some, but apparently not much, of Musuraca’s TV work was in color. At least TAMMY was. Some of THE LUCY SHOW and season 2 of F TROOP were in color, but I don’t know if Musuraca worked on any of those episodes.
Great title on this one, Glenn. I have noticed myself doing things like this in my own work, knocking down walls of realism and fact to get at deeper truths about how images and films interrelate. I’m starting to think of it as “breaking the fifth wall.”