I was watching Along came a Spider (Scope) and noticed that whenever there was a cut a black horizontal line would flash up across the length of the bottom of the screen. It was as if the frame line was "jumping up" eact time there was a cut in the image.

If anybody has any ideas, it was unusuall.

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cut camera negative (splice forms opaque line)

THEN

fine grain pos (negative image of splice shows as clear line)

THEN

dupe neg (reversed, i.e. opaque again)

THEN

release print (reversed, i.e. clear again).

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Here is the history I provided to Marty Hart's American Widescreen Museum website:

_____________________________________________________________________
From 1957 through today, there have been a number of small changes to the anamorphic projector aperture recommended standards.
John P. Pytlak of Eastman Kodak dug through countless back issues of the SMPTE Journal in order to provide the following chronology
of the changes to the standards:

The March 1957 SMPTE Journal has PH22.104-1957, the standard for 2.55:1 anamorphic (no optical track), with an aperture size of
0.912 X 0.715 inches. Notice of withdrawal of this standard was in the January 1964 Journal.

The December 1957 SMPTE Journal has PH22.106-1957 for 2.35:1 anamorphic, with an aperture of 0.839 X 0.715 inches. It was
unchanged in the September 1964 Journal. The November 1965 SMPTE Journal published PH22.106-1965 still with the 0.839 X 0.715
aperture size.

In the September 1970 SMPTE Journal, a new draft of PH22.106 was proposed, with an aperture size of 0.838 X 0.700 inches, to
minimize the flashes at splices. This was republished as standard PH22.106-1971 in the October 1971 issue.

In the June 1976 SMPTE Journal, the two (flat and scope) projectable image area standards (PH22.58 and PH22.106) were
consolidated into one standard and renamed PH22.195. The publication of PH22.195-1984 in the October 1984 Journal still had the
scope area as 0.700 X 0.838 inches.

The June 1992 SMPTE Journal published a proposed revision, with a scope area of 0.690 X 0.825 inches. In August 1993, the
standard was published as SMPTE 195-1993, with the current area of 0.690 X 0.825 inches. So August 1993 is when the two formats
became the same width of 0.825 inches.
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http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/apertures.htm

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Perhaps the theatre was mistakingly using an "Academy" 1.37:1 image area (0.825 x 0.602 inches, 20.96 x 15.29 mm)?

The black would give just enough padding to prevent aperture shadows from appearing and the clear areas would make it virtually impossible to exhibit the film to an audience without the customers raising all hell to the managers to get it framed correctly. The clear frame lines could even have black lettering that says "THIS FILM IS NOT BEING PROPERLY FRAMED - PLEASE CONTACT THE MANAGER".

It seems like cheap insurance for 1.85 filmmakers to ensure that their films are being presented in frame. Even if only the first reel of each movie was matted in this way it would pretty much solve most problems (not counting misframes within the print and changeover setups).

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Just leave a recessed shaft on the side of the projector where the framing knob should be. Make the end of the shaft have a TORX head. In order to turn the framing shaft (knob) you would have to insert a special torx-shaped key.