People should also know that before about 1953 or 1954 movies were made in 1:37:1 which is just about the TV radio (1:33:1) therefore they don't need letterboxing. In the 1960s they re-releeased 'Gone with the Wind' to theaters and decided people wouldn't want to see a windowboxed (black bars on the sides instead of the top and bottom) movie. So they cropped it out to a 1:85 which had become the standard theaterical aspect ratio. It became a movie about Vivien Leigh's nostrils.
I understand that the genesis of wide screen movies was a response to a new form of competition: television.
It tanked, and Wayne spent the next 9 years working in ultra-low-budget Poverty Row B-Westerns.
I think that Fantasia also got cropped in one of the rereleaes.