Early handwritten notes related to the development of the 1990 film Graffiti Bridge, written entirely by Prince in pencil on two lightly lined sheets of notebook paper, no date but circa 1987. The first sheet, 8 x 10.5, consists of two short drafts of Prince's working vision for the film, with Prince heading the first summary "Unfulfilled dreams," before crossing it over in blue ballpoint; the cleaner, more thorough bottom summary, in full: "This is a musical fantasy shot on theatrical sets but without any of the physical limitations of theatre. The very latest in lighting technology would be integrated into the set design in a manner that has never been used in film." The second sheet, 8.5 x 11, consists of notes related to several of the film's characters, in full: "More discussion of the Bridge between Joshua & Sax / Vienna add 2 / Vienna 'What does he see in her' / When they were together they were always fighting / Oh yeah what do they / Not the suit baby line / Make Ruthie more of a poet frustrated that writes on walls. / Page 17 Gruff and Puff crazy tangent / Page 18—Camille wishes he was as crazy as me." In overall fine condition, with a couple tiny edge tears. From the collection of Prince’s former assistant.
In mid-September of 1987, Prince finished his first script for a musical film project entitled Graffiti Bridge, which featured himself in the lead role as Camille, and costarred Madonna as his former flame, Ruthie Washington. In keeping with his vision of “a musical fantasy shot on theatrical sets,” Prince planned to cast several of his own band members in the film, with these notes mentioning several of their character names—Atlanta Bliss as Joshua, Eric Leeds as Sax, Cat Glover as Vienna, Greg Brooks as Gruff, and Wally Safford as Puff. In mid-October, a brief three-day script conference with Madonna proved disastrous, with the singer-actress publicly ridiculing the script and dismissing any potential collaboration. As a result, the original Graffiti Bridge script was abandoned and the project placed on hiatus until 1989. Graffiti Bridge continued to have script problems and underwent three more changes before a screenplay was finalized on February 7, 1990; the script alterations effectively made the film a quasi-sequel to Purple Rain. Although the film earned negative reviews and poor box-office totals, the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack was regarded highly and reached gold sales figures in both the UK and America.
