Boxoffice Pro - August 2020

gave young moviegoers what they were
looking for. These films defied taboos and
censorship and embraced an experimental
approach to filmmaking. Among them
were movies hailing from swinging London,
which exported the Bond franchise
and Beatles films—and stars like Sean
Connery, Michael Caine, and Vanessa
Redgrave—to North American audiences.
The French New Wave introduced young
urban intellectual audiences to Truffaut,
Godard, Brigitte Bardot, and Alain Delon.
Italian films propelled Antonioni, Fellini,
Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, and
Gina Lollobrigida to fame.
The foreign craze was evident in the
pages of Boxoffice Pro. Coverage of
foreign film festivals boomed, as did
editorial by foreign correspondents
and columns like “Tokyo Report” and
“London Report.” In fact, one anonymous
writer reported in 1961 that 70 out of 176
pictures released by 10 companies in the
U.S. between November 1960 and August
1961 were foreign. By February 1964,
Twentieth-Century-Fox, MGM, Columbia,
and United Artists were leading importers
of foreign films. Smaller players like
Embassy and Janus Films, which imported
the work of Ingmar Bergman, steadily
became more prominent.
It was the first time in Hollywood’s
history that stars and films competed with
their international counterparts. And
Hollywood was scared. A writer summed
up the situation in August 1961: “The
foreign invasion appears to be creeping
up on the American production industry
and, in time, may equal it or surpass it.
And from all indications, U.S. companies
will increase their imports in the coming
years. While the top pictures still come out
of Hollywood, the quantity is diminishing.”
The artistic merit of foreign films was often
recognized in the magazine with positive
reviews and the honor of Boxoffice Pro’s
Blue Ribbon Award, but Shlyen always
encouraged Hollywood to regain its
dominant position.
Art house and specialty theaters thrived
thanks to the influx of foreign films. Leonard
Lightstone, executive vice president at
Embassy, said in 1963 that specialty theaters
were “mushrooming” and becoming
more profitable as foreign films cut costs
and became more flexible in their release
strategies than first-run product. In 1960,
Irving M. Levin, divisional director at San
Francisco Theatres, attributed the proliferation
of foreign films to their universal
appeal and to “the inevitable maturing
of film audiences as the country’s level of
education and appreciation broadens.”
Independent cinemas, like the Bleecker
Street Cinema in Greenwich Village, began
showcasing international films. In April
1967, Shlyen urged exhibitors to “drop the
notion that they must have ‘big box office
The new social context
created by the civil
rights movement and the
counterculture revolution
produced an appetite
among younger audiences
for films that spoke to the
reality of the decade.
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