Proving that the course of a great film never does run smooth . . .

Raymond Chandler

December 6th, 1950

Dear Hitch,

In spite of your wide and generous disregard of my communications on the subject of the script of Strangers on a Train and your failure to make any comment on it, and in spite of not having heard a word from you since I began the writing of the actual screenplay—for all of which I might say I bear no malice, since this sort of procedure seems to be part of the standard Hollywood depravity—in spite of this and in spite of this extremely cumbersome sentence, I feel that I should, just for the record, pass you a few comments on what is termed the final script. . .

So Raymond Chandler, the author of the now classic detective novel The Big Sleep, begins in his last and no longer patient letter to Hitchcock's chill off during the pre-production of Strangers on a Train.  You can read the letter in it's disgruntled entirety at  today's Letters of Note.  It's a great site--cruise around the archives for other gems.