Read Director Michael Powell's Gushing Letter to Martin Scorsese About an Early Draft of Goodfellas

The legendary British director Michael Powell (The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) had been friends with Martin Scorsese for over a decade by 1988. Scorsese idolized Powell, and it appears that reverence was reciprocated in a letter Powell sent regarding an epic Scorsese-penned script that would be released two years later as Goodfellas, the same year Powell died. Dig this amazing find.

MICHAEL POWELL PRODUCTIONS

November 14, 1988

Dear Marty

Re: the script of Wise Guys

It is one of the best constructed scripts that I have ever read. At the same time it is not academic, it is not a script just on paper. It is very much alive.

The first question I would ask you, is what is the tone of the director? It is a take-it-or-leave-it tone? It is a dispassionate tone? Is it meant to be the wiseguy's thoughts - or meditations - or memories? And, in the final hiding place, is he resigned to his completely anonymous existence, or does he expect that they will catch up with him some day?

I think that the narration is brilliantly handled on the page, and the tone of the narration will be equally important. How have you managed to sustain the action and narration side by side for the whole length of the script? It's a masterpiece. I can only compare it with the script of The African Queen, or Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity.

Yes, it is a little long, and the pause, or the length, seems to come about the 100 minute mark. By the way, the women, when they arrive, are very good, but I would love to see one of the women in the early part of the film as a young girl, or even a little girl. I mean a new character - either his sister, or a ten-year-old girl. Some of the best scripting is in the first twenty pages. How are you going to handle the youngster? There are not many actors who can play from ten years old to thirty years old.

Dear Marty, it is a stunning script, and will make a wonderful film, and a priceless social document.

(Signed)

Michael Powell

When a prominent filmmaker of the '40s and '50s compares your work to The African Queen and Double Indemnity, you have every right to collapse in a daze for 17 weeks, give or take. I'm curious to hear Powell's thoughts about other Scorsese works. "Re: Last Temptation of Christ, which gospel said that Jesus's thighs were so taut? His torso so ideal?" Click through to Letters of Note to see the original Powell correspondence.

· Letters of Note: Dear Marty [Letters of Note]