Kommentar: Four different transfers of A Hard Day's Night - the earliest 1997 DVD release was taken from the 1994 restoration and presented the movie in fullframe, a format in which it was never intended to be seen. The 2002 Miramax DVD of the 2001 re-release, also based on the 1994 restoration, seemed to be the best version for a long time with its seemingly perfect 1.66:1 framing, while the German Kinowelt version was only taken from a somewhat less perfect re-release print cropped to 1.78:1. The brand-new 2014 Criterion digital 4k restoration gets it finally right and exhibits the perfect, intended 1.75:1 framing and reveals that the Miramax release was actually slightly horizontally compressed to achieve the 1.66:1 ratio, making the framing differences between the two versions almost indetectible - but the Criterion is the overall winner in image quality.
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