Comment: John Sturges' The Hallelujah Trail was released in Region 1 on DVD with a fine soundtrack, but a horrible non-anamorphic Transfer, which looked liked it was derived from an old Laserdisc. The newer Region 2 release has a completely different anamorphic transfer which doesn't have the overly strong colors of the region 1 disc, but looks much more film-like and not like an old video master. The framing is however problematic - the movie was shot in Ultra Panavision with an original aspect ratio of 2.76:1. The american DVD has an aspect ratio of 2.21:1, because it seems to have been transfered from a spherical 70mm reduction of the 2.76 original, and the european DVD seems to be transferred from a 35mm reduction print which was in better shape, but has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and even less picture vertically. But despite the cropping, the european disc clearly has the superior quality and is the best way to watch the movie until a better transfer from the 70mm elements has been done.