Why American film has no neorealist tradition

Some American potential financiers for De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief wanted to cast Cary Grant as the male lead. Furthermore, there was a plan for a while to cast Paul Newman as a dashing, heroic American journalist, through whose eyes we see the story of…Ali la Pointe in Battle of Algiers. Yikes. Sometimes the forces of good prevail.

I learned this from the Battle of Algiers Criterion DVD liner notes (do DVDs have liner notes, or is that term reserved for music?)