Strangers

Dear Raymond Chandler:

I would like to personally thank you for the work that you have put in to our screenplay ‘Strangers on a train’. I have made a number of annotations on the enclosed draft which I would be grateful if you would consider. In particular, you appear to have made a number of plot changes which I would consider important to the original story.
I value your involvement in our movie, and I hope to hear from you with a revised script by end September.

Sincerely,
Alfred J. Hitchcock

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Alfred,

Listen - you can take it or leave it. I’m tired of this shit. There’s only so much that I can do with the raw material. If you really want to know – I’m not crazy about the story. The whole premise is implausible. In order for a story to work – even a dumb murder story – the situation needs to be based in the Real. Also, I don’t buy the Bruno character.
How about this for a story instead: Two strangers meet on a train, fall in love. Years pass by in alternating waves of happiness and misery. The daily drudge is shown in all its detail - they get up in the morning, they eat toast, they go to work, they come home. After forty years NOTHING HAPPENS. She dies. Then he dies. So it goes.

You know what? Ask Dashiell Hammett instead. He’d love it.

Yours,
Ray.

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Dear Raymond Chandler:

Your services will no longer be required on the screenplay of ‘Strangers on a train’.

Sincerely,
Marion Price
Secretary of Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions, INC