Getting the Whole Picture

Trying to squeeze a wide-screen musical onto the small home-video screen usually destroys the film. The square TV screen ratio demolishes wide-screen dance numbers, mangles the balance between singers and leaves on the cutting-room floor actors who have the misfortune of appearing at the ends of the elongated screen.

Early videotapes of such film classics as “Guy and Dolls,” “Oklahoma!” and “West Side Story” were laughable. If two singers sang a love song to each other and were at bobo ends of the wide screen, the choice was to cut to close-ups of each singer or show as much of the wide screen as possible, only to end up with two noses facing each other.

Not only did the panning and scanning destroy the intentions of the creators, the sound tracks were often muddy facsimiles of the originals.

For a while, some companies tried a weak compromise: Most action was panned and scanned, but the musical numbers were letter-boxed (two black bands mask the top and bottom of the TV). The choreography was kept intact, but when the film reverted to panning and scanning, the illusion was lost.

Now much of that has changed. The home-video answer to the problem is letter-boxing and digital sonics. Letter-boxing permits the viewer to see the entire screen and digital sound enables the viewer to hear the original sound tracks in all of their glory.

Three new CBS/Fox laserdisc releases featuring the works of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein show that no matter how wide the screen, no matter how loud the music, the TV screen can handle the job if the film is letter-boxed and the sound digitally treated.

“Oklahoma!” (CBS/Fox CLV long-playing laser videodisc, letter-boxed, $69.98) is wonderfully reproduced, capturing the fun of Agnes de Mille’s influential choreography. The old version was a travesty, panning and scanning groups of dancers out of the film.

Director Fred Zinnemann’s landscapes, once crammed into the small screen, now come to life in all of their glory. The laserdisc clarity and the letter-boxed wide screen capture what is one of the best opened-up film versions of any Broadway musical.

If any musical deserved opening up it is “Oklahoma!” Filmed in both Todd-AO 65mm and 35mm Cinema”cope, the 147-minute musical burst upon the screen starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae.

Unfortunately, the six-track magnetic sound system, which startled audiences in the 1950s, was mixed down to a four-track Cinema”cope copy, and it is this copy that was used for the home edition. That explains the hiss whennthe sound track quiets down. Otherwise, the digital sound track does justice to a score that, besides the title song, includes such classics as “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top” and “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”

The two-disc set includes overture, intermission, entr’acte and exit music.

“The Sound of Music” (CBS/Fox CLV long-playing laser videodisc, letter-boxed, $69.98) is spectacular when seen with proper formatting. The 177-minute musical never sounded better. Ted McCord’s Academy Award-winning cinematography remains intact.

The blockbuster was opened up by director Robert Wise in ways that never detracted from the story or the songs.

Viewers familiar with the old video version will wonder why they never remembered that young colt that joins Andrews in “I Have Confidence in Me.” The reason? It was panned and scanned out of the home-video version.

Intermission, entr’acte and exit music are included. The sound track captures every Hammerstein word.

“South Pacific” (CBS/Fox CLV long-playing laser videodisc, letter-boxed, $69.98) always got a bum rap from critics. This pristine replica of the original wide-screen film directed by Joshua Logan is better than its reputation.

In the panned version, it looked shoddy and dramatically awkward. This new disc version captures what is arguably Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most impressive achievement.

“There is Nothing Like a Dame,” emasculated in the old tape version, comes to sassy life; the visual splendor of “Bali HUai” comes through intact.

The music is intact (overture, intermission, entr’acte and exit pieces), and the two-disc set comes with a black-and-white promotional film called “Insight on TSouth Pacific,U a curious short that explains the Todd-AO process, offers behind-the-scenes film of the movie production and coverage of the New York and Hollywood premieres.