Would a production as early as 1977 that was an animation have any video effects added after telecline? I know that was the case for Doctor Who the TV movie in 1996 (to much annoyance as being a Who fan I would have liked it in HD on BluRay and running at 24fps no pulldown) and the BBC rightly requested that it was converted to PAL using PAL speedup so that the video wasn't juddery, as the first copy was a regular standards convert of the 60Hz NTSC version.

As far as the Hobbit is concerned I guess if there really is only one country that got the PAL transfer that it might have only got a reverse pull-down and speedup to 25fps incased in 50Hz interlaced, or worse a regular standards convert from NTSC 60HZ straight to PAL 50Hz using interpolating.

In which case I would agree that the NTSC version is the only good copy, I would certainly say that about Doctor Who 1996 TV movie that they should have just released the NTSC version worldwide as PAL countries can happily pay NTSC DVDs.

Getting the Spanish version would be good to find out though it might turn out that it has the extra vertical resolution?