An indirect levy did not qualify as a subsidy, and so was a suitable way of providing additional funding for the UK film industry whilst avoiding criticism from abroad.
A number of American film makers worked in Britain in this period on a near-permanent basis, including Sidney Lumet, Stanley Donen, and John Huston.
Stanley Kubrick moved to Britain in the early 1960s to make Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971), among other films.
These included Roman Polanski, François Truffaut (who made Fahrenheit 451 at Pinewood Studios and on location in London and Berkshire) and Jean-Luc Godard.
The Eady Levy also provided funding for the National Film and Television School, which trained a number of directors and actors still in work today.
However, in a White Paper in 1984, the British Government recognised that the levy was no longer fulfilling its original purpose, with much of the payment going directly to distributors rather than producers, and proving an unreasonable burden on the exhibition sector.