dcp trailers not being cropped (unlike film)

[Frank Angel]

I would run lots of foreign titles and many of those were 1.66:1 and intended to be shown that way, but of course the minute the prints would come to the states and pass thru a few US booths, invariably you 'd see 1.85 written on them...I've even seen 1.66 lab printed on the leader and some guy scratched over it and wrote 1.85. Understandably, a huge percentage of commercial theatres only had two plates and lenses -- scope and flat, flat meaning 1.85. Art houses, if they were worth their popcorn salt, would have plates and lenses so they could correctly play 1.33 silent, 1.37 Academy, 1.66 for lots of foreign and many Hollywood films made in that "in between" period -- the time before 1.85 was hard standardized and when CinemaScope screens were put in. The minute that theatre owner installed a scope screen, he was loath to show square-ish Academy images on screen twice as wide as 1.35:1 and for which he'd just paid lots o' money. I even remember seeing paper reel bands that said "Maximum Aspect Ratio: 2:1 above which significant image will be missing -- Minimum Aspect Ratio: 1.66 below which mics and set pieces may be visible." Theatres could pick whatever amount of crop they wanted, usually that was whatever lenses they had handy that would work and then cut the plates to match.