2110-7-3-26

[Douglas Fairbanks]

4, Carlyle Square, Chelsea, S.W.3. Flaxman 2011.

10th April, 1935.

John Buchan, Esq., Ch., M.P. St. Stephen's House, Victoria Embankment, S.W.1.

Dear Sir:

I trust that you will not think me impertinent in writing this note, but I have been informed by my friend, Sir Adrian Baillie, that he has already warned you that I would be writing to you. Probably a fuller explanation of my intentions is necessary from me. I am in the process of forming a film company in this country, designed along very ambitious lines, and one of the stories which I should like to see screened some time in the future would be that of Bonnie Prince Charlie. I am pretty well acquanted with his history and of the colourful background which surrounds him. It has always seemed a great pity to me that one of the most colourful and exciting nations of the world, whose customs, habits and spirit has never been exploited in a big way on the screen. Scotland has, I am sure you will agree, this setting for such a film, and the character of Bonnie Prince Charlie lends itself to all the pageantry, consisting of pipes, kilts and massed clans, of Scotland that could be so effectively presented through the medium of the screen.

Dramatically speaking, it is always a dangerous commercial problem to present a story of a lost cause or what may, from outside, appear to be a lost cause, as well as a story whose end is comparatively anti-climactic.

I am only too well aware of all your pressing business, and what little time you probably would have to be able to think about such things, even should you be interested. My enthusiasm of the possibilities of the story have been so great that I hope you will pardon me taking this liberty in asking if we couldn't meet some time at your convenience to discuss the above subject.

Allow me to congratulate you most sincerely on your appointment and upon your peerage, as well as the predicted success of your book on the King.

Very sincerely yours,

Douglas Fairbanks