FITZGERALD, F. SCOTT. Autograph letter signed ("Scott" at end, "F. Scott Fitzgerald" at top) to Lester Cowan, n.p. [Hollywood], n.d., "Mon Night" [ca. August 1940]. 3 pages, 4to, on rectos, in pencil, slight, even offset from telegram paper on most of first page, two very slight edge tears , headed at top of first page by Fitzgerald: "PRIVATE -- from F. Scott Fitzgerald" (tops of a few letters in signature lost during writing but present at upper margin of second page). "THE AUDIENCE...DESPERATELY TIRED OF SHIT PUT UP EVERY WEEK IN NEW CANS" "...I saw The Great McGinty [a Preston Sturgis movie starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff] and heard the crowd respond and I think your answer is there and not in this wretched star system. When you said you were not going to begin with the prologue and seemed to give credence to some director's wild statement that Petrie was the best character -- I felt that you were discouraged about the venture and it was warping your judgment. If it is such a poor script that it can be so casually mutilated then how will it be improved with two slipping stars? "The virtue of the Great McGinty was one and singular...it had only the virtue of being told to an audience as it was conceived. It was inferior in pace, it was an old story -- the audicence loved it because they are desperately tired of shit put up every week in new cans. It had not suffered from compromises, polish jobs, formulas and that familiarity which is so falsely consoling to producers...That scent of familiarity which seems to promise out here that old stuff has made money before, has become poison gas to those who have to take it as entertainment every night...The writing on the wall is that anybody this year who brings in a good story intact will make more reputation and even money, than those who struggle for a few stars. I would rather see new people in this picture than Gable and Temple..." Letters , ed. M.J. Bruccoli & M.M. Duggan, p. 605 (printed, with an omission and an error, from a typed transcript at Princeton). At the time Fitzgerald was possibly working again on his Hollywood novel, The Last Tycoon . He was to die four months later (on 21 December 1940).
FITZGERALD, F. SCOTT. Autograph letter signed ("Scott" at end, "F. Scott Fitzgerald" at top) to Lester Cowan, n.p. [Hollywood], n.d., "Mon Night" [ca. August 1940]. 3 pages, 4to, on rectos, in pencil, slight, even offset from telegram paper on most of first page, two very slight edge tears , headed at top of first page by Fitzgerald: "PRIVATE -- from F. Scott Fitzgerald" (tops of a few letters in signature lost during writing but present at upper margin of second page). "THE AUDIENCE...DESPERATELY TIRED OF SHIT PUT UP EVERY WEEK IN NEW CANS" "...I saw The Great McGinty [a Preston Sturgis movie starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff] and heard the crowd respond and I think your answer is there and not in this wretched star system. When you said you were not going to begin with the prologue and seemed to give credence to some director's wild statement that Petrie was the best character -- I felt that you were discouraged about the venture and it was warping your judgment. If it is such a poor script that it can be so casually mutilated then how will it be improved with two slipping stars? "The virtue of the Great McGinty was one and singular...it had only the virtue of being told to an audience as it was conceived. It was inferior in pace, it was an old story -- the audicence loved it because they are desperately tired of shit put up every week in new cans. It had not suffered from compromises, polish jobs, formulas and that familiarity which is so falsely consoling to producers...That scent of familiarity which seems to promise out here that old stuff has made money before, has become poison gas to those who have to take it as entertainment every night...The writing on the wall is that anybody this year who brings in a good story intact will make more reputation and even money, than those who struggle for a few stars. I would rather see new people in this picture than Gable and Temple..." Letters , ed. M.J. Bruccoli & M.M. Duggan, p. 605 (printed, with an omission and an error, from a typed transcript at Princeton). At the time Fitzgerald was possibly working again on his Hollywood novel, The Last Tycoon . He was to die four months later (on 21 December 1940).
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