Cinema: Broken Shoestring

Italy's moviemakers, who have turned out some of the world's best postwar pictures on a shoestring (Open City, To Live in Peace, Paisan, Shoeshine), had reason to feel bitter last week about their American competitors. Hollywood was pressing its advantage in the one department in which it invariably excels: money.

The Italians knew very well that more money would not necessarily make better pictures. What they feared was that American money could keep them from making any pictures at all. For Italy had become a popular Hollywood "location," and the visiting moguls were tossing money around freely enough to drive local costs...

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