Letter from James Ivory, New York, New York, to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, 1971 March 17 : typescript manuscript.

Writing that he received Jhabvala's last letter discussing the circumstances around "Bombay Talkie"'s release; mentioning that releasing films in India feels pointless, because even if regular viewers like them, the critics never do; writing "the answer, since the films scarcely do better in the west, would seem to be not to make more films in India. Yet what kind of answer is that? Especially for Ismail?"; discussing that maybe an answer is for Merchant's potential collaborations on "rubbishy kinds of things which people here say they want to make in India" like "Flashman"; hoping that the lead Merchant has on "Flashman" comes through because he will be well paid to do it, but speculating that the film might not do well because director Richard Lester's "films lately haven't been good"; reporting news on "Bombay Talkie"'s box office returns, which amounts to their having broken even; insisting that "it's all been worth it" even if Jennifer and Shashi might not see it quite the same way yet; pivoting to describe a film he would like to make based on the meeting and early relationship of his parents; thanking her for sending the soap, and saying "I always envy people who have nice soap in their bathrooms and wonder where they buy it"; enclosing three photographs of Holly Woodlawn and discussing her modeling for Vogue; mentioning that they haven't secured the funding for the film that would star Woodlawn yet, but that he feels sure they will; requesting that Jhabvala send Chaudhuri's essay "To Live or Not to Live."