I won’t be seeing Warner Home Video’s long-awaited The Searchers DVD until tomorrow, but I’ve got a slight concern with the aspect ratio, as indicated by the stills on this review page on DVD Journal‘s site. John Ford‘s 1956 film was shot in VistaVision, the aspect ratio of which (when the film came out of the lab, that is) was 1.66 to 1, although it was commonly projected at 1.85 to 1. These stills look to me like an aspect ratio of about 2 to 1 — not quite the widescreen aspect ratio of 70mm movies like Apocalypse Now, but close enough. The WHV team that works on older movies is known for being very scrupulous about every last technical detail, so what I’m seeing is probably a distortion issue of DVD Journal‘s. Not a biggie, but if anyone has bought/rented a copy yet and looked at it, I’d love to know if they’re convinced that the aspect ratio is 1.85 or 1.75 or 1.96 or whatever.