World According to Hollywood

Vasey's book spends five of its seven chapters mapping the evolution of how the young film industry homogenized its product to maximize profits from domestic and foreign audiences. She draws in part on the 1983 release of the archives of the Production Code administration to back up her contention that the foreign influence was more important than is generally appreciated. Although Vasey reports that typically only about 40% of a studio's films would be released in non-English-speaking countries, her well-documented history makes clear that Hollywood heeded the chance to cater to markets the world over. If at times it lapses into the convoluted sentences, abstract phrasing and passive-voice locutions that mark this as a revised doctoral dissertation, the study succeeds with some strong points in the last two chapters. These discussions of individual films (the best are the comments about Bachelor Mother and Only Angels Have Wings) provide some extended illustration and explain the on-screen results of such policies of accommodation. Had additional, passing references to other movies (My Man Godfrey, Bringing Up Baby) been comparably developed, the book might be accessible to readers other than film specialists. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)