Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1970 December 1 : typescript signed

Describing the enclosed items ("all the reviews we have except for the one which appeared in Cue, and Harper's Magazine"); saying neither Time magazine nor the Village Voice will review the film, and that there has been nothing yet from Newsweek; describing his feelings about the release of the film ("there's such a malaise everywhere, and it hardly seems important that the film succeeds or fails, that it is well-written of or panned or written of at all"); mentioning how ticket sales are down for all films playing in Manhattan; remembering Ismail's pessimism; saying the common reaction from critics is boredom ("we've shown them India, they got bored with that"); saying he cut scene 2 and Venice out of the film and considered cutting out "the stairs shot where Jennifer calls after Shashi"; saying Ismail has gone to the doctor about a numbness in his leg, which Ivory thinks is probably imaginary; saying he, Ivory, is having uncharacteristic headaches; saying because they can't fill a theatre with Bombay Talkie, they're featuring it on a triple bill with The Householder and Shakespeare Wallah; in a postscript, describing the enclosed flyer and asking her to try to "integrate the last paragraph somehow into the body of the piece" for the English release of the film, and saying Dr. Lloyd said the numbness is all in Ismail's mind; in a second postscript, saying that one thing The Statesman doesn't know is that the reviewer of Bombay Talkie is the lead reviewer of the day, and that their film seems to be doing well in relation to a new Frank Sinatra film (Dirty Dingus Magee) and a new Gregory Peck film (I Walk the Line); describing other items he is enclosing including a letter from Richard Macrory, a letter from Asha Seth, a photograph, a letter from his college roommate, and a biography.