that America was a shallow, vulgar, uncivilized place. He understood the allure of the image it was at pains to present to the world – a bold, insistent image, projected in Technicolor and VistaVision – but he was immune to it. Something within him rebelled against the idea of seeing a film which celebrated this way of life, even in the guise (hypocritical, he was sure) of a lurid melodrama which purported to expose its cracks and fault line