To Gerald Loeb [Letter 369]

This letter was previously published only on the Ayn Rand Institute website.

January 8, 1949

Dear Gerald:

This is just a brief note to let you know the big news: We had a preview of THE FOUNTAINHEAD day before yesterday, January 6—and it was a triumph. Everybody present told me that it was the most sensational preview they had ever attended. The picture went over so well that Jack Warner did not make a single cut or change—and the final negative is being made right now. I don’t want to boast about all the details—I hope you will hear it from Warners themselves. As far as my opinion is concerned, the picture is magnificent.

With best regards from both of us to both of you,

Sincerely,

Ayn Rand

This was Rand at her most enthusiastic about the film. Ten years later, in her biographical interviews, she said that although she liked the script, she “disliked the picture enormously, disliked everything about it,” criticizing the acting, the pacing and particularly the directing—she described director King Vidor as “a cheap, naturalistic mediocrity, and totally wrong for this job.”