The movie was of course great, easily one of Rod Steiger's (and possibly even Sidney Poitier's) finest performances, and the rest of the cast in top form, too.

BUT -- the same projection problems that have been plaguing this season of Sundown Cinema keep spoiling each and every movie up to now. Really, is it truly that difficult to get the aspect ration right?

Please, please, DO download a proper player (like VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/), get rid of all that garbage like PowerDVD, MS MediaPlayer etc., TRY IT OUT once before the event, and fix that problem. It will take but 15min, but it would considerably improve the experience for the folks attending the movie not to see it ridiculously stretched.

I have to be honest - since I'm not running the technical end of things, I feel I can be relatively impartial about this stuff. I really don't notice any problem with the viewing quality at Sundown Cinema. The film series is never going to be film-theatre quality, especially because the image is being projected against the wall of an old building.

The whole point of Sundown Cinema is not to recreate a perfect cinema experience, it's to enjoy classic films of artistic and/or social importance (hopefully introducing them to a new generation) in a great community atmosphere where you can meet locals and make new friends.

I didn't find the picture stretched, and the video quality is much better than in past years. The new projector and sound equipment have made a huge difference (thank you, Jim Aspinwall).

When wheels are round/circular rather than oblong, oval or eliptical it seems that the aspect ratio is as originally determined.

We've checked the aspect ratio 3 of 4 viewings and it is set on what some have said works. Forcing it rather than letting the software match is probably the wrong thing to do.

This has not been an issue for every showing, nor one that we hear more than one very vocal frustrated critique about.

Noted that some shots are odd compared to other aspects... and it IS possible that these shots were different originally and altered in digital transfer to "best fit".

I doubt the software used is as significant as the multiple conversion processes from older cameras and lenses and film to conversion to digital formats.

It's really not about film theater quality, or a critique of Sundown Cinema as an institution. Far from it. I am merely pointing out a technical issue that you guys obviously know exists (every time you start playing around with the aspect ratio setting), but do not know how to fix.

So here is how: use proper software. You are currently playing 16:9 video streams at 4:3 aspect ratio, and it looks awful. The projector you are using is a 4:3 projector, so the fact that a widescreen formatted movie fills the entire frame without letterboxing is a pretty obvious indication that something isn't quite right. Or, if the absence of letterboxing isn't a clear-enough sign: if a late-60ies Rod Steiger looks slim, something is amiss.