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Variety (1938) - Hollywood's 'Touchy' Pix

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HOLLYWOOD'S 'TOUCHY' PIX

IGNORE FOREIGN FROWNS, WHIMS

Not Concerned About Dictatorial Inhibitions Abroad — Producers Feel It's Futile to Cater to Foreign Governmental Idiosyncrasies Under Existing World Conditions

Hollywood, Nov. 22.

Studio execs are ready to defy foreign censorship of Hollywood films and cut loose with pictures held in abeyance out of consideration for dictators abroad.

With Metro filming "Idiot's Delight," long delayed because of Italian opposition, the same company is reported ready to shoot the Sinclair Lewis story, "It Can't Happen Here." Selznick-International is going ahead with "Titanic" in spite of British kicks.

Sentiment in the studios is that there is no further use of catering to the whims of foreign governments that have either completely banned American pictures or have imposed such stringent rules against Hollywood productions that there is no longer any profit in exporting them.

Understood the Cunard - White Star Line objected to "Titanic" and made formal complaint to the State Department in Washington, which turned it over to Will Hays.

"We have no intention of abandoning the picture," declared a spokesman for Selznick. "In fact, we have brought Richard Blaker, one of England's foremost novelists, to write the story, and have signed a British director, Alfred Hitchcock, as pilot".