TYPED LETTER SIGNED

Kennebunkport, Maine, 1955. Typed Letter Signed. An excellent, one-page (8.5- by 11-inches) letter on personalized stationery, dated May 18, 1955, about Roberts' displeasure with the movie version of LYDIA BAILEY. To publisher Oswald Train, North Hills Pennsylvania. "You couldn't be righter on your comments of the motion picture version of LYDIA BAILEY. 20th Century Fox buggered it from beginning to end. Just as in the case of NORTHWESR PASAGE, all motivation was eradicated, all character work was destroyed, the casting was execrable, and all the money invested in it was completely thrown away." Roberts writes that the film company promised his that John Ford would make the picture. "Instead of that, 20th lived up to a least one part of its name by employing a twentieth grade director as well as a group of twentieth grade actors." He goes on to explain the confines of a story like LYDIA BALEY and that it took him seven years to figure out the best was to tell the story. "But those incredible motion pictures apes never did understand it, any more than they understood NORTHWEST PASSAGE." He discusses his new novel, BOON ISLAND. He discusses some other reference books and said he is enclosing seven (signed?) bookplates. With a handwritten postscript about FLORIDA LOAFING. A wonderful, revealing letter! Lydia Bailey is a 1952 American historical film directed by Jean Negulesco. It stars Dale Robertson and Anne Francis. Very Good.