Playing in Peoria: Subtitled or Dubbed Movies Rarely Make it to American Movie Screens

Picture John Wayne as Genghis Khan, his head encased in a spike-topped wok, and wearing baggy Mongolian trousers which stop four inches above his ankles. He claps his hands imperiously. Bring on the dancing girls! Hand gripping the pommel of his scimitar (cryptic movie symbolism, you understand), Wayne leers through narrowed eyes at Susan Hayward, who is swirling tempestuously in something diaphanous, and declaims the immortal words, "I feel this Tartar woman is for me, and my blood says: Take Her!"

Yessir, this wonderful American movie moment really exists. Since you ask, it was in a 1950s Hollywood extravaganza called "The Conqueror", a jewel of the movie-maker's art which all concerned doubtless spent the rest of their lives drinking to forget.

You think Genghis 'Duke' Khan sounds funny in English? Wait until you hear him dubbed into German. "Dieses tatarische Weib ist für mich, mein' ich...." Ouch! Indeed, according to aficionados of TWMMOAT (i.e. The Worst Movie Moments Of All Time), you haven't really lived until you have sat through an entire John Wayne Western dubbed into Japanese. Heaven only knows what the Japanese make of it all.

The trouble is, movie alienation is a two-way street. American movies, like some vintage wines, may not travel well to other parts of the world, but movies from the rest of the world have a tough time getting into America at all. If you're making "Memoirs of a Geisha" you need bankable, Hollywood-recognized stars, even if they are Chinese instead of Japanese. If movies are sub-titled, they may as well abandon the attempt to reach US audiences. Americans just won't sit and read little white writing at the bottom of the screen and call it entertainment. It's a culture thing.