TLS: Saturday, December 04, 1920

Provincetown, Mass.
Dec. 4, 1920.

My dear Madden:

What about the herewith enclosed? I have received several notes of this kind lately, but mostly connected with the one-acters, and haven't know what to do with them. Can these reading birds be made to disgorge any coin, do you think? And does a lecture reading conflict with the contract rights possessed by the Famous Players?

I hope fervently that the Famous Players can be persuaded to ante up soon now. There seems no valid excuse for them after they established a precedent by paying what was due on the previous weeks. Am glad you have sent them the letter. If you pry them loose, I shall certainly regard you as a true Santa Claus, even if you don't exactly look the whiskered part of it.

Thanks for the information about the form a movie idea should take for submission. But how long should it be? Surely they don't want to be regaled with any of the superfluous frills and literary stuff that one would more or less put into a short story. Isn't a simple running narritive of the plot enough? The idea isn't drab or sordid in any way. Neither is it light or comic at all. It's a big world conception that, I believe, interests every single human being alive today in one way or other, and I think, if it can be made convincing enough, is an idea that would do an incalculable amount of good.

It will be a favor if you will give me all the dope - or any further dope, I mean - you think would be of help. I can stand an awful lot of information on the subject.

With all best wishes,

Sincerely,

Eugene O'Neill.