Word: millions
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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These are impressive figures, but there are shortcomings. The U.S. still underwrites an annual trade deficit that has ranged from $70 to $90 million, and U.S. advisers fear that this will continue until the Nationalist government provides new incentives for investment in export industries. Private U.S. investors have put only $54 million into Formosa, partly because they object to the terms of Formosa's foreign-investment law, partly because of sad experience with the widespread "squeeze" system, through which some Formosan officials almost seem determined to run foreign businesses out of the country, not bring them...
...experts on the scene, pleased by the general economic improvement, nonetheless are disturbed by Formosa's high production and consumption of consumer items, which discourages capital formation. "Formosans are consuming too much, saving too little," says one U.S. expert. Formosa now has a population of more than 10 million and one of the highest rates of population increase (3.6%) in the world. Even with heavy expenditure on land reclamation and irrigation, Formosa's currently well-fed citizens will either have to cut down their eating or start importing food...
...historical novel, Ben-Hur, which in 19 years had sold 400,000 copies. And that, though the general did not live to see it, was only the beginning. By 1920, a stage version of the general's work had been running 21 years, had been seen by 20 million fans, had grossed $10 million. In 1926, M-G-M turned it into the first of the cinemammoths, a $4,000,000, two-hour spectacle starring Ramon Novarro as Ben-Hur and Francis X. Bushman as Messala. By 1936, the film had grossed almost $10 million, and the book...
Last week, after five years of preparation, 6½ months of shooting in Italy, nine months of editing in Hollywood, and a massive publicity campaign, M-G-M displayed a new version of Ben-Hur that is far and away the most expensive movie ever made-it cost $15 million to produce, $1,500,000 more than The Ten Commandments-and also one of the longest-3 hr. 37 min., not including a 15-minute intermission. Only Gone With the Wind (3 hr. 42 min.) and The Ten Commandments (3 hr. 39 min.) ran longer...
...ever made for any movie. It covered 18 acres, held 10,000 people and 40,000 tons of sand, took a year to complete, and cost $1,000,000. The race itself, which runs only nine minutes on the screen, ran three months before the cameras and cost another million. Three months before the shooting stopped, Production Manager Henry Henigson had a serious heart attack, and two weeks later Producer Sam Zimbalist had a fatal one. By the time the cameras had finally stopped rolling, MGM's London laboratories had processed, at a cost of $1 a foot, some...