To Jean Wick [Letter 13]

August 20, 1934.

Dear Miss Wick,

Under separate cover I am mailing to you a copy of a novelette I have written from my screen story “RED PAWN”. If you recall, this is the story which Paramount has bought and which will, probably, be Marlene Dietrich’s next or second vehicle. Paramount has the screen rights, of course, but I have the serial rights and I have rewritten the story in novelette form, hoping that it may be suitable for a serial publication in a magazine. The fact that it is going to be produced on the screen may prove of some help in selling it.

If you like it and find that you are interested in handling it, please let me know and I shall mail you additional copies of it. I would like very much to give it a try at the Saturday Evening Post, if you do not find that impossible, because the Post seems to have a very decided anti-Soviet attitude.

I do not want to give you the impression that I can write nothing but Russian stories. My first ones were Russian merely because it is the background I know best and because I found in it material that has not been overdone. “RED PAWN”, incidentally, was written before “AIRTIGHT”. But I am working, at present, on a new novelette with a strictly American background. It is laid in Hollywood and does not have a single Russian in it.

As to “AIRTIGHT”, I have received a letter from Mr. Mencken, telling me that he has sent, at my request, the copy of it, which he had, to Dutton’s. If you find it convenient you may get in touch with them about it.

With best personal wishes,

Sincerely yours,