Who is this angry little man?
Can someone with more knowledge in projectionist history explain "and in no event at less than 1.75 to 1."?
I used to be a projectionist and have worked with some older projectors.
From what I understand, the standard back then for European projectors was 1:1.75 "FLAT". They would have had to have an older projector in order to project at 1.66 and in the states, the minimum they would be able to handle is 1:1.85. So how could he expect it not to be "less"? at least in the states.
I'll ignore that he wrote "1-1:75" when the correct way is "1:1.75" (though that seems odd for a stickler like Kubrick), but why would he write a letter telling everyone to project the film at a ratio that most theaters can't project at?
ALSO, if this was his intention, it seems he would be smart enough to know that if he had the film printed for 1.66 projection and that the majority of the world would see it projected at either 1.75 or 1.85, the image would be (slightly) distorted. Why not just print the film for 1.85/1.75 projection and mask off the areas you don't want seen?
It seems ridiculous to call this letter a fake (mostly because it IS ridiculous to fake this letter), but I'm just a little confused by it.