found the title too offensive and changed the title of the film in their marquee, which did not always reflect the title on the screen. While most of the big cities in the United States saw the film advertised and on the screen as Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, the smaller towns and more religiously-inclined communities saw it advertised as The Unafraid. Prints sent to commonwealth countries, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, were also advertising the film as The Unafraid, though some areas of Ontario, Canada advertised an "Adult-Only" version of Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, due to the Ontario Censor Board. England also refused the film's original novel title and a special version was sent using Universal-International Pictures' title card text Blood on My Hands. The film's title changes and adult ratings only benefited Norma Productions with additional publicity and generating more interest from movie-goers, as the critics continued to describe the film inexplicitly as a romantic drama. Distribution Preview and release When heading into production in March 1948, Universal-International Pictures had scheduled to release Kiss the Blood Off My Hands in October of that year. Everything remained on schedule and the film was previewed in various cuts during the summer of 1948 to gauge audience reaction. Once the film was ready for general circulation, Norma Productions previewed the film in eleven key cities for members of the press from mid-to-late October 1948. The film officially premiered on Friday, October 29, 1948, at Loew's Criterion Theater in New York City, and opened to over three hundred theaters in the United States starting on October 30 and throughout November 1948. During its inaugural run at Loew's Criterion Theater in New York City, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was preceded by the Universal-International Pictures short Buddy Rich and His Orchestra, followed be Columbia Pictures' short Boy and His Dog and finally with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer short Pigskin Skill. European distribution On September 24, 1948, The Film Daily reported that Joseph H. Seidelman, head of foreign operations for Universal-International Pictures, took Kiss the Blood Off My Hands and eleven other Universal-International Pictures films (including Rampart Productions' You've Got to Stay Happy and Lancaster's next film Criss Cross which had been filmed from mid-June to mid-July 1948 during Kiss the Blood Off My Hand's post-production) over to Europe for distribution through markets in France, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Italy