Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, a fun-loving, hard-working Hollywood writing-directing team (Ninotchka, The Lost Weekend), came home from Europe conscious of one big difference between U.S. and European movies. To the New York Post's Archer Winsten they explained:
"You have to smuggle mood into an American picture. Mood itself, American audiences will not swallow. You have to be extremely clever. You do it with a shoehorn. For instance, a European opens his picture with a shot of the clouds. Then another, very beautiful. Then a third. The audience accepts it as part of the mood.
"With an American audience, the first shot of...
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