criterionforum.org

I saw the 35mm print screened at Lincoln Center's excellent Lancaster retrospective a decade ago - it looked great but unfortunately I don't remember it beyond that broad assessment. If it was shot full-frame/academy and cropped for 1.66:1, I would be curious to see it in academy just to see how it improves the picture quality as it would mean packing more image capture (or grain density or whatever the appropriate term would be) into the same window of pixels. I vaguely recall Kino's original Blu-ray looking a bit soft, but that could have a lot to do with the encode rather than what was scanned.

Anyway, I think the film's fine but it's absolutely worth seeing for Lancaster, who deserved the Oscar he won for it. His career is full of wonderful performances, but this one could be his best.

I’ll go you a couple better, I think all four main characters give Oscar worthy perfs (and Shirley Jones at least also won, even if Jean Simmons and Arthur Kennedy were shockingly not even nominated)

Also here’s the source since I think wherever I originally posted it has a dead image link anyways

I double-checked too. I have no idea if the AFI Catalog is known to be 100% accurate, but if you look under the DETAILS tab, it indeed lists Elmer Gantry as 1.33:1.

I saw the restoration at Bologna and it was pretty stunning. This will be a very easy upgrade for me—if Kino doesn't botch something, of course. Unfortunately, it was my second to last screening of the festival, so I'm afraid my attention was a bit shot and I don't recall what ratio it was in...