Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 258: Have we been watching Ed's movies all wrong for decades?

This week, we focus on a certain, uh, aspect of Ed Wood's movies.

I'm sorry, you guys, but we have to talk about aspect ratios this week. I know, I know. I'll try to make this as painless as possible. But I'm going somewhere with this, and it relates to Ed Wood. Be patient. Keep in mind that I am not a filmmaker and not even a photographer, so you will have to forgive me if I am technically imprecise. If you can do better, please do.

Kylie does not approve.

As a kid, I honestly never gave much thought to the geometrical dimensions of TV screens or movie screens. (What kid notices stuff like this?) I knew that TVs were squares and movies were rectangles, but I didn't perceive that as a problem. Starting sometime in the mid-1980s, however, a few films—usually artsier titles like Amarcord (1973) and Manhattan (1979)—were released in what was called a "letterboxed format" on VHS and laserdisc. This trend continued into the 1990s, becoming well-known, if not well-loved, among consumers. Letterboxing meant that there would be black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, allowing the entire film frame (usually 1.85:1) to fit within the TV screen (usually 1.37:1 or 4:3) and not have the sides of the picture lopped off.

Letterboxing quickly became controversial, even hated. Film critics insisted it maintained the integrity of the original films and saved them from the indignity of the pan-and-scan process. Viewers, however, felt that letterboxing took movies that had already been shrunk down for television and then made them even smaller until they were difficult to see. And, besides, it meant that about half your screen was taken up by empty black space. How was that an improvement? You can see people's frustrations made manifest in the 1987 music video "The Loco-Motion" by Kylie Minogue. At one point, the familiar black bars appear at the top and bottom of the screen. Kylie scowls at them a little and flicks them away with her finger. The video then returns to its usual 1.37:1 or "fullscreen" aspect ratio.

It should be pointed out that this widescreen vs fullscreen issue generally only affects movies made from the 1950s onward. Before that, it was standard practice for movies to be filmed and projected in what was called Academy ratio, roughly 1.37:1. Classics like The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Casablanca (1942) were shot in this ratio, which meant that they did not have to be cropped when shown on television. We may think of Gone with the Wind (1939) as a widescreen epic, but it isn't. It's Academy ratio, too.

Eventually, TV sets became widescreen, and the letterboxing controversy all but evaporated. (Though we now have the exact opposite controversy, with old 4:3 episodes of shows like The Simpsons being cropped or distorted to fit newfangled TV sets.) Today, YouTube is able to accommodate videos of various aspect ratios. There are even numerous movies with multiple aspect ratios. This became semi-trendy in the 2000s and 2010s, thanks to directors like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. Nowadays, most people watch things on their phones, so "cinematic integrity" is not exactly a top priority anymore. If you want to see a film the way the director intended (or whatever), you go to a movie theater or get it on Blu-ray or 4K. Otherwise, who cares?

One lingering misconception from the letterboxing brouhaha is that all widescreen movies are cropped when they're shown in the so-called "fullscreen" format. That simply isn't true. Many movies are shot in a process called open matte. This means that the theatrical version is the one that's actually cropped, with the top and bottom of the negative masked off and only the middle projected onto the screen. Sometimes, when open matte movies were shown on TV or released to home video, what we'd get is the unmatted version with the full negative visible. This could result in viewers seeing things the director never meant for them to see, like boom microphones hanging over the actors' heads. On the Polyester (1981) DVD, John Waters talks about having this problem with some early TV airings and home video releases of that film.

And now, at long last, we come to Edward Davis Wood, Jr. and his most famous film, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Not long ago, when writing about the Bela Lugosi footage in that film, I decided to click on the "tech specs" tab of Plan 9's IMDb page. And there, I saw that the movie was shot on 35mm film, which has an aspect ratio of 1.37:1. And that's how I've been seeing the movie since the 1990s in all TV airings, home video releases, and even public screenings. But according to the IMDb, the film's intended aspect ratio was 1.85:1. That means that Eddie intended the top and bottom of the frame to be masked off and invisible to audiences.

Could this be true? If so, this has some implications for us as viewers. A couple of Plan 9's major bloopers—including the boom mic shadow over Gregory Walcott and David De Mering in the cockpit scene and the very visible strings holding up the flying saucers—might have been less conspicuous or hidden altogether. And so, as I always do in matters like this, I headed to the Ed Wood Jr. Facebook group and asked the denizens there what they thought. The response I got was nearly unanimous: yes, the movie was shot on 35mm and was intended to be projected at 1.85:1. Here are a handful of the comments I received:

• "Definitely shot on 35, and yes, it has been formatted wrong all these years on home video. Some of the famous flubs in the movie are eliminated if it’s matted correctly (visible boom/boom shadow, etc.)" - Paul Apel (author of I Watched Football Early the Day I Died)

• "I think it's very likely that it was supposed to be projected at 1.85:1 - which would have covered up at least one blooper." - Will Sloan (author of Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA)

• "I believe I mentioned the matting all the way back when I did the text commentary on the Legend Films DVD of Plan 9. I can't remember where I first heard the idea, but I immediately bought into it. As has been pointed out, many (not all) of the silly things are eliminated by matting. I feel strongly that that was the intention." - Philip R. Frey (creator of The Hunt for Edward D. Wood Jr.)

• "1:85 would be correct. After the early 1950s, when scope came along, all movies were framed for 1:85 in an effort to keep up. What happens is that all films were shot in open matte and then cropped with a metal slide in the projector in the theater. The open matte was used for TV reductions and people got used to seeing those prints on the tube and became accustomed to the full frame version, but when those movies appeared in theaters they were 1:85 like any other film. So were all those AIP black and white movies like I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). 1:85 is not considered widescreen and 35mm was/is the industry standard for theatrical movies. Almost no theater ran 16mm features back in the day. That was a specialty item." - Fred Olen Ray (prolific filmmaker and author)

In a separate thread in that same group, film producer Bob Furmanek, the man behind the 3D restoration of Flame of Islam (1953), commented: "As [producer] Jack Theakston and I have been saying for 20 years now, Bride of the Monster [1955] and Plan 9 from Outer Space were both composed for widescreen presentation." He also included a link to an extensive article and a handy-dandy chart showing how certain moments in Plan 9 would look like in 1.37:1 and 1.85:1 versions. I've included this chart below:

Key moments from Plan 9 in different aspect ratios.

Intriguing topic, isn't it? To give our discussion a little focus, I decided to prepare my own homemade widescreen version of Plan 9 from Outer Space. It's crude, I'll allow you, but it gives you some idea of what Eddie's best-known movie would look like if the top and bottom of the screen had been masked off as the director most likely intended.