You learn something new every day. The Wall Street Journal has a piece Thursday about Hungary’s use of incentives to lure film business to the country. Here?s the lede:
In Hollywood’s early days, Hungarians helped build the move business. Adolph Zukor founded Paramount, William Fox (born Wilhelm Fried) started 20th Century Fox, and director George Cukor blazed a tral from ?The Philadelphia Story? to ?My Fair Lady.? In Hollywood legend, a sign on one studio door once warned, ?It?s not enough to be Hungarian, you have to have talent, too.?
The piece goes on to list other notable Hollywood Hungarians, including Michael Curtiz, the director of ?Casablanca? and a very cool follow-up movie I saw the first time last week (including Bogart and several other of the cast members) entitled ?Passage to Marseille.?
By the way, the piece suggests that the European competition for film business using corporate incentives (yuck) is a deviation from the norm, since cultural products are exempted from the EU?s otherwise useful prohibitions against government subisides distorting the marketplace in Europe (hooray).
The instigator of the exemption was . . .wait for it . . . you know who I?m going to finger . . .
France.
