This just in: Disney has done the right thing, by releasing Darby O’Gill and the Little People in its OAR. It was released yesterday, in fullscreen, but the DVD insert mentions that this movie was filmed in 1.33:1, and that it was cropped for theaters. The quote below is from the DVD insert.
Darby O’Gill and the Little People is presented as it was originally shot, in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. When released to theaters in 1959, the studio recommended projecting the image at 1.75:1, to satisfy the public’s growing appetite for widescreen movies. To give the illusion of this wider image, theaters often needed to crop films at that time, and some of the picture was not seen. The following presentation has not been cropped, and none of the original image has been lost.
Also, I would like to mention that two more widescreen only blockbuster films have been released in the last few weeks. These are Hellboy, and 13 Going On 30.