Movie Release Dates

[Novella]

Often movies have different release dates in different countries. What I'm curious about is the delay of movie releases between Britain and the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s. What sort of things governed the date a movie would be shown? Why time releases separately? I'm also curious about what kind of effect World War II had on the distribution of American films in Britain? More general thoughts on movie release dates around the world and throughout time would be interesting to hear about too.

I tried to play internet detective to come up with an answer:

That's a British film magazine issue from November 1939. Amazon lists the original release date of Union Pacific as May 5, 1939.

Here's another issue, this time from December 1939, featuring a movie that was released in the U.S. on April 8, 1939.

Just a few months delay then? This is, of course, assuming that the films covered in fan magazines coincided with the release of those films in Britain in that month. Too many flaws in trying to figure it out this way I think.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

Just watched "The Third Man" (1949, w/ Orson Welles & Joseph Cotton, a must-see BTW) on TMC two nights ago. Robert Osborne commented on that. For this particular movie, the writer & director were British & American, and had different ideas on how it should be presented, and which scenes were inappropriate. The British version had slight editing differences.

Maybe that had to do with the delays of all-American-made movies, that the British wanted to review them first & edit where they felt necessary before showing.

 

[The Wolf]

The Americans insisted that decolletage be covered before the film could be shown here.
On the imdb you can search release date for movies. Often it will have the UK date as well as the US release.

Sincerely,
The Wolf