Letter spotted by
Columba Powell
An interesting letter
Dec 7th 1950
To: James Sandoe
... I haven't seen Sunset Boulevard, but I'm sure it's good in spite of
The New Yorker. You should by all means catch The Bicycle Thieves, and if
possible, an English picture called I Know Where I'm Going, shot largely
on the west coast of Scotland - the coast that faces the Hebrides. I've
never seen a picture which smelled of the wind and rain in quite this way
nor one which so beautifully exploited the kind of scenery people actually
live with, rather than the kind which is commercialized as a show place.
The shots of Corryvreckan alone are enough to make your hair stand on end
(Corryvreckan, in case you don't know, is a whirlpool which, in certain
conditions of the tide, is formed between two of the islands of the Hebrides.)
But you'd better forget about the Hitchcock film, because I have seen the
final script made up from what I wrote, but a good deal changed & castrated.
It is, in fact, so bad that I am debating whether to refuse screen credit.
Raymond Chandler
From his letters
In the end, Chandler took joint screen credit for the film, Strangers on
a Train, with Czenzi Ormonde.
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