Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1967 March 31 : typescript signed.

Asking why he hasn't heard from her, asking about the "Shakespeare Wallah" sequel; telling her Merchant has sent off a letter to "the Alex Jacobs-Sir William Piggy Brown-Red Brute bunch" asking for financing; thanking her for the gold pencil she sent him via Merchant; assuring her that he has "done both the duties you asked me to," sending a thank you letter to Catherine Freeman, and a gift to her assistant Miss Nanda; observing that "the first of the bitchy reviews [of "Shakespeare Wallah"] from Bombay have arrived," but also noticing that the film got rave reviews and ran for a month in Helsinki ("Those Finns!"); breaking the news that Walter Matthau is out of the running for "Vertical and Horizontal," which he actually feels good about, having decided Matthau would be unpleasant to work with-- a verdict Lillian agrees with; relating in detail a bad experience Subrata Mitra recently had working (on Ivory's recommendation) on a film directed by first time director Cecile Tang in Hong Kong; relating Mitra's descriptions of relations on the set, including between Tang and her leading lady "Lisa Loo, who makes Leela Naidu sound all sweetness and light"-- "I warned [Mitra] before he went that Cecile would be timorous and indecisive, and I warned Cecile that Mitra has a terrible temper. The first was only half true, the last seems to have surpassed all experience of mine even. I shall never do that again. In fact, generally, I should practise keeping my mouth shut at all times," like Satyajit Ray.