Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1971 August 26 : autograph manuscript signed.

Enclosing a number of clippings of English reviews of "Bombay Talkie"; noting the same critics who loved "Shakespeare Wallah" are not happy with the film; calling this reaction "the fickleness the Maestro [Satyajit Ray] warned me about once"; relating how Foo [Felicity Kendal] commiserated with him over the reviews until one too many reviewers mistook her sister Jennifer for her-- then she "rather gave up"; noting he was "also alone in London when the Guru reviews came out" but they didn't bother him as much; meditating on slowness in their films, including their latest, "Savages," shot by Walter Lassally-- which doesn't seem slow-- and wondering if the combination of his direction and Subrata Mitra's cinematography is to blame; admitting he thinks they "made a mistake" with the ending of "Bombay Talkie" in not shooting the funeral-- which would have been modeled on Geeta Bali's-- as Joe Saleh had wanted; lamenting the fact that audiences seem incapable of sympathy for Jennifer's character; describing Merchant's fury with critics and with Ivory and Jhabvala; telling her they went to see "The Householder" and "Shakespeare Wallah" and "Everybody enthused over it genuinely, and in such a way that it made me think that again it was a matter of timing. In a debauched and spiritually vile age the story of Prem and Indu is reassuring, but when it came out in 1963 people were avid for debauch and vileness, homey values were nothing then"; personally lamenting some of the choices he made in "Householder" and "Bombay Talkie"; transcribing a short scene from "Savages"; noting that "Soon you will be here," and describing a few of the possible activities he has lined up for her visit, including a visit to the Swopes out on Nantucket, and the changes they have and are making to their apartment; describing a recent real estate sale that has brought in some money, and wondering if he should consult with relatives in Texas over re-investing the funds in real estate there-- "But who wants to get involved with real estate in Texas?"; telling her that he has begun editing "Savages" with "the same [editor] who cut the Nirad Chaudhuri film" [i.e. Kent McKinney] and he feels the acting isn't "as high an order as it's sometimes been in the past, though for God's sake don't tell Ismail I think so"; describing the dynamics he thinks caused problems among the actors; relating in a postscript Nirad Chaudhuri's reaction to "Bombay Talkie."