The Eady Levy: A Runaway Bribe? Hollywood Production and British Subsidy in the Early 1960s

Abstract

The histories of British and American film production have long been entwined, but interaction between the two industries was perhaps most intense during the 1950s and 1960s as Hollywood companies relocated film production to British locations on a large scale, investing millions of dollars in Britain and financing hundreds of projects technically identified as British. These ‘runaway productions’ were not unprecedented; similar practices were prevalent in the 1930s as several Hollywood studios set up British production units in order to meet the quota requirements of the 1927 Cinematograph Films Act (Glancy 1998). However, runaway production in the 1950s and 1960s stands apart due to its much larger scale and the massive impact it had on both the British and American film industries. According to Sue Harper and Vincent Porter, American studios produced ‘about 170’ films in Britain between 1950 and 1959, approximately 14 per cent of Britain’s total film output (Harper and Porter 2003: 114; Vincendeau 1995: 464). By 1967, the National Film Finance Corporation reported that American finance accounted for 90 per cent of all production capital invested in Britain (Murphy 1992: 258). In the intervening period, it became increasingly difficult to maintain a clear distinction between American runaway production and ‘indigenous’ British film-making. This article examines the influence of the British Film Production Fund, or Eady levy, on American production in Britain in the early 1960s. The Eady levy has often been acknowledged as an economic stimulant for film-making in Britain, motivating and sustaining the investment of Hollywood companies, but it also possessed a cultural dimension and was responsible for shaping the content of the films produced by American studios in Britain. In particular, the Eady levy encouraged Hollywood companies to use their British subsidiaries to