Dengler [Vietnam Exclusive: I Escaped from a Red Prison] (Original corrected manuscript)

N.p.: N.p., 1966. Heavily corrected original typescript for a story by Dieter Dengler and ghost-writer Trevor Armbrister, "Dengler" (here with the hand-corrected title, "Vietnam Exclusive: I Escaped from a Red Prison"). The story first appeared in the December 3, 1966 issue of the "Saturday Evening Post," and was adapted many years later by noted German director Werner Herzog for his 1997 documentary film, "Little Dieter Needs to Fly," then remade by him in 2006 as a dramatic version titled "Rescue Dawn," starring Christian Bale as Dengler.

Being that the story was ghost-written by Trevor Armbriste in 1966 (the same year of Dengler's escape)-and that Dengler was a military pilot and not a writer, in addition to still recovering from injuries at the time-it is most likely that the substantive corrections are Armbriste's.

Source material for Herzog's early films, often highly improvised affairs, is rare. This manuscript is the earliest corrected form of the story that would be adapted into two of the director's finest efforts.

64 leaves on white stock with yellow revision pages inserted throughout, with profuse substantive manuscript corrections in pencil, red pencil, black ink and red ink throughout. Title page integral with the first page of text, rubber-stamped No. 40304.