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Home , Buddy Buddy, Bulldog Drummond Escapes, Death Mills, Double Indemnity, Five Graves to Cairo, Mauvaise Graine

September 17, 2013 (XXVII:4) , (1944, 107 min)

J

National Film Registry—1992

Directed by Billy Wilder Written by (screenplay) and based on the novel by James M. Cain Original Music by Cinematography by John F. Seitz Costume Design by Makeup by

Fred MacMurray...Walter Neff ... Edward G. Robinson...Barton Keyes Porter Hall...Mr. Jackson

BILLY WILDER (b. Samuel Wilder, June 22, 1906, Sucha, Galicia, -Hungary [now Sucha Beskidzka, Malopolskie, Poland]—d. March 27, 2002, West , California). Billy Wilder won the 1986 Life Dawn, 1939 , 1938 That Certain Age, 1938 Achievement Award and 7 —the 1988 Irving Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, 1933 Was Frauen träumen, 1933 No G. Thalberg Memorial Award, 1961 Best Director for The Children Wanted, 1932 A Blonde's Dream, 1931 The Wrong Apartment (1960), 1961 Best Picture for (1960), Husband, 1931 Her Grace Commands, 1930 Ein Burschenlied 1961 Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the aus Heidelberg, 1930 Der Kampf mit dem Drachen oder: Die Screen for The Apartment (1960), which he shared with I.A.L. Tragödie des Untermieters (short), 1930 People on Sunday, and Diamond, 1951 Best Writing, Story and Screenplay for Sunset 1929 Hell of a Reporter. Blvd (1950), which he shared with and D.M. In Addition, Wilder directed 27 films, among them1981 Marshman Jr., 1946 Best Director for The Lost Weekend (1945), , 1978 Fedora, 1974 The Front Page, 1972 Avanti!, and 1946 Best Writing, Screenplay for The Lost Weekend (1945), 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, 1966 The Fortune which he shared with Charles Brackett. Wilder was credited with Cookie, 1964 Kiss Me, Stupid, 1963 , 1961 One, writing 77 titles, including 1981 Buddy Buddy, 1978 Fedora, Two, Three, 1960 The Apartment, 1959 , 1957 1972 Avanti!, 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, 1967 Witness for the Prosecution, 1957 Love in the Afternoon, 1957 Casino Royale, 1966 , 1963 Irma la Douce, The Spirit of St. Louis, 1955 , 1954 Sabrina, 1961 One, Two, Three, 1960 Ocean's Eleven, 1960 The 1953 17, 1951 Ace in the Hole, 1950 Sunset Blvd., 1948 A Apartment, 1959 Some Like It Hot, 1957 Witness for the Foreign Affair, 1948 , 1945 The Lost Prosecution, 1957 Love in the Afternoon, 1957 The Spirit of St. Weekend, 1945 , 1944 Double Indemnity, 1943 Five Louis, 1955 The Seven Year Itch, 1954 Sabrina, 1953 , Graves to Cairo, 1942 , and 1934 1951 Ace in the Hole, 1950 Sunset Blvd., 1948 A Song Is Born, . 1948 , 1945 The Lost Weekend, 1944 Double Indemnity, 1943 , 1941 Hold Back the

Wilder—DOUBLE INDEMNITY—2

RAYMOND CHANDLER (b. Raymond Thornton Chandler, July Decision, 1948 The Naked City, 1947 A Double Life, 1947 Brute 23, 1888, Chicago, Illinois—d. March 26, 1959, La Jolla, Force, 1947 The Macomber Affair, 1947 Song of Scheherazade, California) earned 35 film and TV writing credits, including 1946 The Killers, 1946 The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, 1945 1978 (novel), 1975 Farewell, My Lovely (novel), The Lost Weekend, 1945 Spellbound, 1945 Lady on a Train, 1973 “Double Indemnity” (TV movie), 1973 1944 Double Indemnity, 1943 So Proudly We Hail!, 1943 (novel), 1969 Marlowe (novel), 1959-1960 “” (26 Sahara, 1943 Five Graves to Cairo, 1942 Jungle Book, 1940 The episodes), 1951 Strangers on a Train (screenplay), 1947 Lady in Thief of Bagdad, 1939 The Four Feathers, 1937 Knight Without the Lake (novel), 1946 The Big Sleep (novel), 1946 The Blue Armor, 1937 Thunder in the City. Dahlia, 1944 , My Sweet (novel), and 1944 Double Indemnity (screenplay). He was best known as a novelist. JOHN F. SEITZ (b. John Francis Seitz, June 23, 1892 in Chicago, Illinois—d. February 27, 1979, Woodland Hills, JAMES M. CAIN (b. James Mallahan Cain, July Los Angeles, California) John F. Seitz was the 1, 1892 in Annapolis, Maryland—d. October cinematographer on 163 titles, including 1960 27, 1977, University Park, Maryland) earned Guns of the Timberland, 1959 Island of Lost 31 writing credits, including 2004 Swing My Women, 1958 The Badlanders, 1955 Hell on Swing High, My Darling (novel), 1995 Girl in Frisco Bay, 1955 The McConnell Story, 1955 the Cadillac (novel), 1982 Butterfly (novel), Many Rivers to Cross, 1954 Saskatchewan, 1953 1981 The Postman Always Rings Twice Botany Bay, 1952 Thunder in the East, 1952 The (novel), 1973 “Double Indemnity” (TV movie) San Francisco Story, 1951 Detective Story, 1951 (novel), 1968 Interlude (screenplay), 1949 When Worlds Collide, 1950 Sunset Blvd., 1950 Everybody Does It (story), 1947 Out of the Captain Carey, U.S.A., 1949 The Great Gatsby, Past, 1946 The Postman Always Rings Twice 1948 Night Has a Thousand Eyes, 1948 Saigon, (novel), 1945 Mildred Pierce (novel), 1944 1948 The Big Clock, 1945 The Lost Weekend, Gypsy Wildcat (screenplay), 1944 Double 1944 Casanova Brown, 1944 Hail the Conquering Indemnity (novel), 1943 Ossessione (novel), Hero, 1944 , 1944 Double and 1939 Stand Up and Fight (screenplay). Indemnity, 1944 The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, 1943 Five Graves to Cairo, 1942 Star Spangled MIKLÓS RÓZSA (b. April 18, 1907 in Rhythm, 1942 The Moon and Sixpence, 1942 This Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]— Gun for Hire, 1941 Sullivan's Travels, 1939 The d. July 27, 1995, Los Angeles, California) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1938 A received 3 Academy Awards—1946 Best Christmas Carol, 1938 Young Dr. Kildare, 1937 Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Madame X, 1937 Between Two Women, 1935 Picture for Spellbound (1945), 1948 Best Redheads on Parade, 1933 Dangerously Yours, Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy 1931 Misbehaving Ladies, 1930 Kismet, 1926 The Picture for A Double Life (1947), and 1960 Magician, 1923 Where the Pavement Ends, 1922 Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture for Ben- The Prisoner of Zenda, 1921 The Four Horsemen of the Hur (1959). He was a member of the music departments on 104 Apocalypse, 1917 A Game of Wits, 1917 The Bride's Silence, titles, among them 1977 The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, 1917 Whose Wife?, 1916 The Ranger of Lonesome Gulch (short), 1977 Providence, 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and 1916 The Quagmire (short). 1959 Ben-Hur, 1957 Zombies of Mora Tau, 1956 Lust for Life, 1956 Bhowani Junction, 1955 Abbott and Costello Meet the EDITH HEAD (b. Edith Claire Posener, October 28, 1897, San Keystone Kops, 1954 Beau Brummell, 1954 Men of the Fighting Bernardino, California—d. October 24, 1981, Los Angeles, Lady, 1953 El Alaméin, 1953 Mission Over Korea, 1947 Song of California) won 8 Academy Awards—1950 Best Costume Scheherazade, 1945 A Song to Remember, 1944 Dark Waters, Design, Black-and-White for The Heiress (1949), which she 1941 Major Barbara, 1941 The Saint's Vacation, 1940 The Thief shared with Gile Steele, 1951 Best Costume Design, Black-and- of Bagdad, and 1938 Drums. White for All About Eve (1950), which she shared with Charles In addition, Rózsa composed the music for 94 titles, Le Maire, 1951 Best Costume Design, Color for Samson and including 1989 Gesucht: Monika Ertl (documentary), 1982 Dead Delilah (1949), which she shared with , Eloise Men Don't Wear Plaid, 1981 Eye of the Needle, 1979 Time After Jensson, Gile Steele, and Gwen Wakeling, 1952 Best Costume Time, 1979 Last Embrace, 1978 Fedora, 1977 The Private Files Design, Black-and-White for A Place in the Sun (1951), 1954 of J. Edgar Hoover, 1977 Providence, 1973 The Golden Voyage Best Costume Design, Black-and-White for Roman of Sinbad, 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, 1968 The Holiday (1953), 1955 Best Costume Design, Black-and-White Green Berets, 1963 The V.I.P.s, 1962 Sodom and Gomorrah, for Sabrina (1954), 1961 Best Costume Design, Black-and- 1961 El Cid, 1961 King of Kings, 1959 Ben-Hur, 1959 The White for The Facts of Life (1960), which she shared with World, the Flesh and the Devil, 1958 A Time to Love and a Time Edward Stevenson, and 1974 Best Costume Design for The to Die, 1957 Tip on a Dead Jockey, 1957 Something of Value, Sting (1973). Head was the costume designer on 437 titles, 1956 Lust for Life, 1956 Bhowani Junction, 1956 Diane, 1954 including 1982 Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, 1927 Wings, and Men of the Fighting Lady, 1953 Knights of the Round Table, 1925 The Golden Bed. 1953 Julius Caesar, 1951 Quo Vadis, 1950 The Asphalt Jungle, FRED MACMURRAY...Walter Neff (b. Fredrick Martin 1949 Adam's Rib, 1949 Madame Bovary, 1948 Command MacMurray, August 30, 1908, Kankakee, Illinois—d. November Wilder—DOUBLE INDEMNITY—3

5, 1991, Santa Monica, California) was in 98 films and tv series, 1932 Forbidden, 1931 Ten Cents a Dance, 1931 Illicit, 1930 including 1978 The Swarm, 1973 Charley and the Angel, 1960- Ladies of Leisure, 1929 Mexicali Rose, 1929 The Locked Door, 1972 “My Three Sons” (380 episodes), 1963 Son of Flubber, and 1927 Broadway Nights. 1961 The Absent Minded Professor, 1960 The Apartment, 1959 Face of a Fugitive, 1956 There's Always Tomorrow, 1954 The EDWARD G. ROBINSON...Barton Keyes (b. Emmanuel Caine Mutiny, 1948 An Innocent Affair, 1948 The Miracle of the Goldenberg, December 12, 1893 in Bucharest, Romania—d. Bells, 1947 The Egg and I, 1946 Smoky, 1945 Murder, He Says, January 26, 1973, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California) appeared 1944 And the Angels Sing, 1944 Double Indemnity, 1944 in 114 films and tv series, among them 1973 Soylent Green, 1972 Standing Room Only, 1941 Dive Bomber, 1941 One Night in Neither by Day Nor by Night, 1971 “Rod Serling's Night Lisbon, 1941 Virginia, 1939 Cafe Society, 1938 Men with Wings, Gallery” (TV series), 1970 Song of Norway, 1969 Mackenna's 1937 True Confession, 1936 The Texas Rangers, 1936 The Trail Gold, 1968 It's Your Move, 1967 Operazione San Pietro, 1965 of the Lonesome Pine, 1935 The Gilded Lily, 1935 Grand Old The Cincinnati Kid, 1964 The Outrage, 1964 Cheyenne Autumn, Girl, 1929 Tiger Rose, 1929 Why Leave Home?. 1964 Robin and the 7 Hoods, 1963 The Prize, 1962 Two Weeks in Another Town, 1960 Pepe, 1960 Seven Thieves, 1956 The Ten Commandments, 1955 Hell on Frisco Bay, 1955 Tight Spot, 1955 The Violent Men, 1949 House of Strangers, 1948 Night Has a Thousand Eyes, 1948 Key Largo, 1948 All My Sons, 1947 The Red House, 1946 The Stranger, 1945 Scarlet Street, 1945 Journey Together, 1945 Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, 1944 The Woman in the Window, 1944 Double Indemnity, 1944 Tampico, 1941 The Sea Wolf, 1940 Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, 1938 The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, 1937 Kid Galahad, 1936 Bullets or Ballots, 1935 Barbary Coast, 1933 I Loved a Woman, 1931 Five Star Final, 1931 Little Caesar, 1930 The Widow from Chicago, 1930 Outside the Law, 1930 Die Sehnsucht jeder Frau, 1930 A Lady to Love, 1930 Night Ride, 1929 The Hole in the Wall, 1923 The Bright Shawl, and 1916 Arms and the Woman.

PORTER HALL...Mr. Jackson (b. Clifford Porter Hall, September 19, 1888, Cincinnati, Ohio—d. October 6, 1953, Los Angeles, California) appeared in 80 films, including 1954 Return to Treasure Island, 1953 Vice Squad, 1953 Pony Express, 1952 BARBARA STANWYCK...Phyllis Dietrichson (b. Ruby Catherine Carbine Williams, 1951 Ace in the Hole, 1949 Intruder in the Stevens, July 16, 1907, Brooklyn, New York City, New York— Dust, 1949 The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, 1947 d. January 20, 1990, Santa Monica, California) received an Singapore, 1947 Miracle on 34th Street, 1945 Murder, He Says, American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 1987 and an 1945 Blood on the Sun, 1944 Going My Way, 1944 Double Honorary Academy Award for superlative creativity and unique Indemnity, 1944 Standing Room Only, 1944 The Miracle of contribution to the art of screen acting in 1982. She appeared in Morgan's Creek, 1943 The Woman of the Town, 1943 The 106 films and tv series, including 1985-1986 “The Colbys” (24 Desperadoes, 1943 A Stranger in Town, 1941 Sullivan's Travels, episodes), 1985 “Dynasty” (TV series), 1983 “The Thorn Birds” 1940 Arizona, 1940 His Girl Friday, 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to (TV mini-series), 1965-1969 “The Big Valley” (112 episodes), Washington, 1938 Tom Sawyer, Detective, 1937 Wells Fargo, 1964 The Night Walker, 1961-1964 “Wagon Train” (TV series), 1937 True Confession, 1937 Escapes, 1936 1962 Walk on the Wild Side, 1962 “Rawhide” (TV series), 1958- The General Died at Dawn, 1936 Satan Met a Lady, 1936 Too 1959 “Zane Grey Theater” (TV series), 1957 Forty Guns, 1956 Many Parents, 1936 The Story of Louis Pasteur, 1936 The There's Always Tomorrow, 1955 The Violent Men, 1954 Cattle Petrified Forest, and 1934 . Queen of Montana, 1954 Executive Suite, 1953 Titanic, 1952 Clash by Night, 1950 The File on Thelma Jordon, 1949 The Lady BILLY WILDER (from World Film Directors V. I. Ed. John Gambles, 1948 Sorry, Wrong Number, 1947 The Two Mrs. Wakeman. H.H. Wilson Co. 1987) Carrolls, 1946 The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, 1944 “Billy” (Samuel) Wilder was born in Vienna, Austria, Hollywood Canteen, 1944 Double Indemnity, 1942 The Gay the younger of two sons of Max Wilder, a hotelier and Sisters, 1942 The Great Man's Lady, 1941 , 1941 You restaurateur and Eugenie Dittler. Sent to the Vienna Belong to Me, 1941 Meet John Doe, 1941 The Lady Eve, 1939 realgymnasium and University of Vienna which he left after less Golden Boy, 1939 Union Pacific, 1937 Stella Dallas, 1936 The than a year to work as a copy boy and then as a reporter for Die Plough and the Stars, 1936 His Brother's Wife, 1936 A Message Stunde. to Garcia, 1935 Annie Oakley, 1935 The Woman in Red, 1933 Baby Face, 1933 The Bitter Tea of General Yen, 1932 So Big!, Wilder—DOUBLE INDEMNITY—4

In those years after the First World War, young writers Wilder was infuriated by directorial misinterpretations working in the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire gravitated of his scripts and frequently bounced onto the set to say so. naturally to the cultural ferment of Berlin, and Wilder made his Eventually Paramount gave him a chance to show how it should way there at the age of twenty. For a time he worked as a crime be done. His first American film as director was The Major and reporter on Nachtausgabe (and/or as a film and drama critic; the Minor (1942), about a disenchanted career girl stranded in accounts vary). Many colorful stories are told (mostly by Wilder New York who masquerades as a twelve-year-old because she himself) about this part of his life: it is said that he fell in love lacks the adult train fare back to Iowa. (then with a dancer, neglected his work, lost his job, and became a thirty) played the heroine, , the military-school dancing partner for “lonely ladies,” and a gigolo. He spent his officer she falls in love with, and the result was universally time on the fringes of Berlin café society, met some young enjoyed as “an enchanting film farce.” Wilder followed this very filmmakers and tried his hand successful debut with Five Graves as a scenarist. to Cairo (1943), a fairly ludicrous The first picture war thriller, which cast Erich von made from a Wilder script Stroheim as Field Marshal was Menschen am Sonntag Rommel. Wilder, who was awed (People on Sunday, 1929), by the inventiveness of Stroheim’s directed by another young performance, says, “he influenced hopeful, Robert me greatly as a director: I always Siodmak..[Other collaborators think of my style as a curious included Edgar Ulmer, Fred cross between Lubitsch and Zinneman and Eugen Stroheim.” Schüfftan] “It was about young people having a good Raymond Chandler, not time in Berlin, and it was Brackett, was Wilder’s coauthor talked about a lot,” Wilder on Double Indemnity (1944), says. “It represented a good based on the novella by James way to make pictures: no Cain. This brilliant unions, no bureaucracy, no studio, shot silent on cheap stock: we starred Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray as lovers who just ‘did it.’ As a result of its success, we all got jobs at UFA, the plan the “accidental” death of Stanwyck’s husband, and Edward huge German studios. . . . .I’d write two, three, four pictures a G. Robinson as the cold-blooded insurance agent who month. I accumulated about a hundred silent picture assignments, investigates the claim. Double Indemnity (which the Hays Office and then, in 1929, when sound came in, I did scores more.” They condemned as “a blueprint for murder”) is a film of great included Gerhard Lamprecht’s version of Emil and the originality, not least in Wilder’s decision to begin the film with Detectives and vehicles for many of the German stars of the MacMurray’s Dictaphone confession. Wilder has “always felt period. that surprise is not as effective as suspense. By identifying the criminals right off the bat–and identifying ourselves with them– Wilder had his eye on Hollywood but left we can concentrate on what follows–their efforts to escape, the faster than he had intended when Hitler came to power in 1933: net closing, closing.” Shooting the film on location in Los “It seemed the wise thing for a Jew to do.” Stopping over for a Angeles, Wilder, and his cameraman John F. Seiz worked for time in Paris, Wilder (in collaboration with Alexander Esway) seedy realism rather than Hollywood chic–“I’d go in kind of directed his first film, Mauvaise Graine (Bad Blood, 1933). A dirty up the sets a little bit and make them look worn. I’d take the fast-paced movie about young auto thieves, it was made on a white out of everything….The whole film was deliberately shoestring and featured Danielle Darrieux, then seventeen. Soon underplayed, done very quietly; if you have something that’s full after, Wilder sold a story to Columbia and this paid his way, via of violence and drama you can afford to take it easy.” Howard Mexico, to California. Wilder arrived in Hollywood speaking Barnes in his review called Double Indemnity a thriller that more almost no English and shared a room and “ a can of soup a day” than once reached “the level of high tragedy,” and the film is with Peter Lorre. now widely regarded as a classic of the genre. Neil Sinyard After two hard years, Wilder became a writer for suggests that it is also an indictment of American materialism Paramount. He had no great success, however, until in 1936 the and a study of the conflict between reason and passion, order and producer Arthur Hornblow asked him to collaborate with Charles anarchy. Brackett on a script, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife for Ernst Lubitsch. The Lost Weekend (1945) captured four Oscars: one for Bracket was a novelist and a New Yorker drama critic, an urbane best picture, one for Ray Milland as best actor, two for Wilder as man from an old New England family. In spite of the radical best director and as coadaptor with Brackett of Charles Jackson’s differences between the two men, they formed a highly effective novel. Set (and partly filmed) in New York, it observes an writing team, with Bracket selecting and polishing the most alcoholic writer as he struggles against his craving; then promising of Wilder’s “prodigious stream of ideas.” Among the succumbs, then lies, cheats, and steals to buy drink. As in Double excellent entertainments they wrote for Paramount directors in Indemnity, the audience is forced to share the growing the late 1930s and early were Midnight and Hold Back the desperation of an individual in a state of moral collapse….The Dawn for Mitchell Leisen, Ball of Fire for Howard Hawks, and film has touches of mordant humor and an unconvincing upbeat Lubitsch’s Ninotchka. ending but is otherwise quite uncompromising; it was Wilder—DOUBLE INDEMNITY—5 nevertheless a commercial as well as a critical success, Wilder’s next three films were all highly profitable confounding the studio bosses and movie columnists who had adaptations of stage plays–the exuberant prison-camp comedy prophesied disaster. Stalag 17 (1953), the romantic satire Sabrina (1954; Wilder’s The Emperor Waltz (1948) took Wilder from Third last film for Paramount), and The Seven Year Itch (1955), in Avenue to fin de siècle Vienna, which the dreamy humor is where an American phonograph sometimes overwhelmed by the salesman () falls in love prodigious presence of Marilyn with an Austrian countess (Joan Monroe. The Spirit of st. Louis Fontaine). This mildly amusing (1957), Wilder’s account of romance was followed by a more Lindberg’s 1927 flight from New acerbic study of the clash between York to Paris, was an expensive American and European values in A failure. It was followed by another Foreign Affair (1948), which has estimable play adaptation, Witness Congresswoman Jean Arthur visiting for the Prosecution (1958), with postwar Berlin to investigate the Charles Laughton hamming moral turpitude of occupying GIs. unforgettably as the barrister Like many subsequent Wilder films, defending Tyrone Power against this one derives excellent comedy Marlene Dietrich. These five from the spectacle of human depravity. Wilder, whose mother, movies were written by Wilder with an assortment of grandmother, and stepfather had all been murdered by the Nazis, collaborators; the next film, however, marked the beginning of had first revisited Berlin in 1945 during a brief tour of duty as the second great writing partnership of his career, with I.A.L. colonel in charge of the film section of the United States Army Diamond. Love in the Afternoon (1957), about the regeneration Psychological Warfare Division. A Foreign Affair, in its of an aging American playboy (Gary Cooper) through his love rigorous eschewal of national stereotypes and its cheerful for a Parisian innocent (Audrey Hepburn), has been called insistence on the universality of human weakness, is in its ribald “Wilder’s most emphatic tribute to Lubitsch,” a romantic way an act of faith. It drew from Marlene Dietrich a wonderfully comedy of the greatest elegance and charm. ironic, cooly defiant performance as a nightclub singer. In the roaring comedy of errors that followed, two A cruel and haunting picture, Sunset Boulevard (1950) broke, speakeasy musicians ( and Tony Curtis) was a controversial, world-wide success, regarded by many as happen to be in a Chicago garage on February 14, 1929, just in the best film ever made about Hollywood and by others as a time to witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Choosing treacherous calumny…. between death and dishonor, they dress up as women and join an Louis B. Mayer wanted Wilder horsewhipped, but it all-girl band, which is on its way to Florida….Completed with seemed to James Agee that the film allowed Norma Desmond great difficulty because of Marilyn Monroe’s increasing and her contemporaries a barbarous intensity that had a “kind of incapacity for work, Some Like It Hot (1959) is widely regarded grandeur” compared to the small, smart, safe-playing” as one of the cinema’s greatest comedies. Gerald Mast, indeed, Hollywood of the 1940s. thinks it’s Wilder’s best film, “a rich, multilayered confection of Sunset Boulevard, which brought Wilder and Brackett parodies and ironies,” calling subtly into question conventional Oscars for best story and best screenplay, was the last film they notions of masculinity, femininity, sex, love, and violence. wrote together–“sometimes match and striking surface wear out,” After the delirious pace of Some Like It Hot, Wilder Wilder explained. His next picture was one of the blackest ever achieved an almost equal success with The Apartment (1960), a to come out of a commercial studio, Ace in the Hole (1951), also quiet , sad, often bitter comedy about the perennial conflict known as The Big Carnival. An Albuquerque newsman down on between love and money….The film brought Wilder Oscars for his luck () finds a man trapped in a mine cave-in best film, best director, and-with coauthor Diamond–best story and creates a journalistic scoop by postponing a rescue for six and best screenplay days. Vast crowds arrive to enjoy the tragedy, a carnival moves None of Wilder’s subsequent movies has equaled the in to exploit the crowds, and in the end the man dies. The film success and prestige of the best of the films he made between was much admired in Europe, but in the United States it was a 1950 and 1960, though all have had their admirers and disaster, destroying at a stroke Wilder’s reputation as an defenders…. Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), admired abroad for its infallible audience-pleaser who could make gold out of trash. Ace “glorious” bad taste, its ruthless way of poking fun at American in the Hole was seen as an insult to the American people in greed and hypocrisy, opened in the United States to a storm of general and to the Fourth Estate in particular. Its failure was abuse. It was called “sordid” and “slimy” and was condemned by regarded as clear evidence that Wilder had all along owed his the Legion of Decency for leaving adultery unpunished. Deeply success to Charles Brackett. (Since then the picture has been hurt, Wilder retired for a time to Europe and, according to discussed with increasing admiration by critics who praise it as Maurice Zolotow, actually considered suicide. The improbably “a harsh allegory of the modern artist” and compare it, in its positive ending of the otherwise savage satire that followed, The passion, anger, and courage to Stroheim’s Greed.) Fortune Cookie (1966), was regarded by some critics as evidence that Wilder had lost his nerve. Wilder—DOUBLE INDEMNITY—6

The most widely discussed of Wilder’s late films was Fedora (1978), a sadder and wiser variation on the theme of from Conversations with Wilder. Cameron Crowe. Alfred A. Sunset Boulevard. . . . Sunset Boulevard was made when Wilder Knopf, NY, 2000. was at the peak of his success, and it has a confidence and BW: When I did Double Indemnity, I tried every audacity lacking in the later films. Perhaps, as Adrian Turner and leading man in town. I went about as low as , that’s Neil Sinyard suggest, Fedora is “even richer because of that, the pretty low. [Laughs.] He had somebody read the script for him, vision of a man who knows the system inside out but who. . . has because he could not read. So somebody read the script, and then been increasingly placed in the situation of an outsider looking halfway through, he came over to the studio and said, “I’m in. Thus, the tone of the film is extraordinarily ambivalent, halfway through that script, and where comes the lapel?” And I constantly pulling between sombreness and romance. . .this said, “The lapel?” “You know what I mean—where does it show ambivalence is thematically of the utmost relevance and that he’s an FBI man? The lapel!” [He demonstrates turning the importance. . .the whole film is about ghosts, mirror images and lapel of a coat over, showing an FBI badge.] “There is no lapel,” doubles–about the pull between truth and illusion, youth and I tell him. “I really am a murderer? I wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t age.” touch it, for God’s sake!” But Stanwyck knew that it was good stuff, and she grabbed it. Dutch Detweiler in Fedora complains that his CC: Do you remember the Hollywood has gone: “The kids direction you gave Barbara with the beards have taken over, Stanwyckn on Double Indemnity? with their zoom lenses and For that silent shot on her face handheld cameras.” Wilder when the murder is occurring in himself, though he has been the backseat? generous in his praise of some of his juniors, is similarly BW: When he shoots the contemptuous of that which he husband in the backseat. Yes. Sure, regards as stylistically pretentious that was a highly intelligent and self-conscious in actress, Miss Stanwyck. I contemporary cinema. His own questioned the wig, but it was work is for the most part not proper, because it was a phony visually distinctive, relying more wig. It was an obviously phony on language than on images to wig. And the anklet—the convey his misanthropic vision. equipment of a woman, you know, Coming of age in Berlin between the wars, it seemed to that is married to this kind of man. They scream for murder. Wilder that (as one of his characters says) “People will do Yeah, naturally we rehearsed this thing. But I rehearsed it with anything for money. Except some people. They will do almost her once or twice, that’s the maximum, and it was not that much anything for money.” That, as he acknowledges, is the theme of different from the way she would have done it. She was just an all his pictures, and in the best of them he has expressed it extraordinary woman. She took the script, loved it, right from the dramatically enough or wittily enough to make it palatable to word go, didn’t have the agent come and say, “Look, she’s to millions. That he has been concerned to sweeten the bitter pills play a murderess, she must get more money, because she’s never he hands his audiences displeases some of his recent critics: going to work again.” With Stanwyck, I had absolutely no David Thomson, for example, has called him “a heartless difficulties at all. And she knew the script, everybody’s lines. exploiter of public taste who manipulates situation in the name of You could wake her up in the middle of the night and she’d satire.” In fact, what has happened, as Neil Sinyard says, is that know the scene. Never a fault, never a mistake—just a wonderful “a director previously identified with a cinema of acerbity and brain she had. risk in a climate of tasteful timidity has come to represent a cinema of temperateness and geniality in a climate of CC: Did you write the part for Barbara Stanwyck? sensationalism and shock.” BW: Yeah, And then there was an actor by the name He lived in a relatively modest apartment crammed with of Fred MacMurray at Paramount, and he played comedies. paintings by such artists as Picasso, Klee, Chagall, Dufy, and Small dramatic parts, big parts in comedies. I let him read it and Rouault. he said, “I can’t do that.” And I said, “Why can’t you?” He said, He is a chain-smoker, and , according to Axel Madsen, “It requires acting!” [Laughs.] I said, “Look, you have now his most striking physical trait is restlessness: Walter Reisch arrived in comedy, you’re at a certain point where you either similarly says that “speed is absolutely of the essence to him. He have to stop, or you have to jump over the river and start cannot do anything slowly.” Wilder is a famous wit and something new.” He said, “Will you tell me when I’m no good?” sometimes a cruel one; he once remarked that “All that’s left on [He nods.: a partnership is born.] And he was wonderful because the cutting-room floor when I’m through are cigarette butts, it’s odd casting…. chewing-gum wrappers and tears. A director must be a CC: I have a question about the look and art policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant, and a direction of your movies. Just below the surface of the scripts bastard.” and the acting is a very rich layer of visual detail. When you head Wilder—DOUBLE INDEMNITY—7 into a picture like The Apartment or Double Indemnity, do you asked. Sometimes they wanted to do a little move…and held have a painter in mind whose work has inspired you? What kind back. [Smiles.] of specific vision do you give to your production designer? . CC: Some still wonder about that door in the BW: [Warming instantly:] Not actually a painter, but apartment hallway in Double Indemnity. In the great scene where sometimes houses. Like for instance, Double Indemnity. I had to Stanwyck comes to visit Neff (MacMurray). She hides behind find a house that is typical for a guy like the husband of Barbara the door as Keyes (Robinson) exits. Yet apartment doors always Stanwyck. Two stories I wanted, because I wanted to photograph open in, and this one opens out. her coming down the steps with the anklet. The art director lived in a house like this, and what I wanted, what I was trying for with BW: Yeah, that was a mistake that we made and I my cameramen John Seitz—he was a very old man. [Smiles.] did not want to correct it. We’d already shot it. It worked and I Only fifty-one at the time and had done pictures with did not want to reshoot it. Valentino—was a very specific thing. I told him that whenever I … I had made two grim pictures, Double Indemnity and come into a house like this, whenever I opened the door and the Lost Weekend. Double Indemnity was so grim, by the way, that sun was coming in, there was always dust in the air. Because Brackett kind of ducked out. He says, “No, it’s too grim for me.” they never dusted it. And I asked him, “Could you get that So that’s how I got [Raymond] Chandler. Mr. Raymond effect?” And he could. Chandler, from whom I learned in the very beginning, you know, what real dialogue is. Because CC: How did you that’s all he could write. That, arrive at the visual style of the and descriptions. “Out of his movie? ears grew hairs long enough to catch a moth”…or the other one BW: We had to be I loved: “Nothing is as empty as realistic. You had to believe the an empty swimming pool.” But situation and the characters, or he could not construct. all was lost. I insisted on black- He was about sixty and-white, of course, and in when we worked together. He making operettas I’d learned was a dilettante. He did not like that sometimes one technical the structure of a screenplay, shot destroyed a picture. You wasn’t used to it. He was a could say that Double Indemnity mess, but he could write a was based on the principal of M beautiful sentence. “There is [Fritz Lang, 1931], the very nothing as empty as an empty good picture starring Peter swimming pool.” That is a great Lorre. I had a feeling, line, a great one. After a while, I something in my head, M was on my mind. I tried for a very was able to write like Chandler….I would take what he wrote, realistic picture—a few little tricks, but not very tricky. M was and structure it, and we would work on it. He hated James Cain. I the look of the picture. It was a picture that looked like a loved the story, but he did not care for Cain. I tried to get Cain, newsreel. You never realized it was staged. But like a newsreel, but he was busy making a movie. Chandler also didn’t care for you look to grab a moment of truth, and exploit it. . But each had what the other lacked. Christie, she knew structure. Sometimes the plot was very high-schoolish. CC: But the lighting was sometimes very dramatic. She had structure, but she lacked poetry. Very underrated, Were you influenced by the German expressionist films? Christie, She is not discussed enough.

BW: No. There was some dramatic lighting, yes, but CC: Over the years, it appears you’ve upgraded it was newsreel lighting. That was the ideal. I’m not saying that your estimations of [Mitchel Leisen and Chandler. every shot was a masterpiece, but sometimes, even in a newsreel you get a masterpiece shot. That was the approach. No phone BW: Sure, the anger gets washed, gets watery. You setups. I had a few shots between MacMurray and Edward G. know, you forget about it. That’s a very good thing. That’s the Robinson, and they happened at the beginning and the end, when only thing. Sure. I cannot forgive Mr. Hitler, but I certainly can the two were together in that room. That was it. Everything was forgive Mr. Leisen or Mr. Chandler. That’s a different story. meant to support the realism of the story. I had worked with the [Pause.] But then…there was a lot of Hitler in Chandler. cameraman before and I trusted him. We used a little mezzo light in the apartment when Stanwyck comes to see MacMurray in the from , Double Indemnity. Bfi, London, 1996 apartment—this is when he makes up his mind to commit murder. That’s it. I always had a good friendship with my Wilder could acknowledge what movies until then cameramen. Fritz Lang told me early in my career, “Look for the hesitated to admit openly, the anti-romantic possibility that good shooters, there are some special ones.” He was right, and I sexual attraction can easily turn into sexual obsession, and that was very lucky. They were good, very fun. They did what was once it does it has a terrible power to victimize and criminalize.

Wilder—DOUBLE INDEMNITY—8

In Cain’s story, we vaguely understand the demon from Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American claims investigator to be a sort of father figure to Walter. But he Style, edited by Alain Silver & Elizabeth Ward is a distant and somewhat menacing one. In the movie their With the Western, film noir shares the distinction of relationship is much warmer, and it is set forth in much richer being an indigenous American form. Unlike Westerns, noir films detail. ‘It’s the love story in the picture,’ as Wilder put it. have no precise antecedents either in terms of a well-defined literary genre or a period in American history. As a result, what There were executives at Paramount who did not might be termed the noir cycle has a singular position in the brief believe that Wilder would ever ‘lick’ Double Indemnity. Indeed, history of American motion pictures: a body of films that not they had in hand, before he and Chandler began work, a letter only presents a cohesive vision of America but that does so in a from the Breen office roundly disapproving Cain’s novella, and it manner transcending the influences of auteurism or genre. Film speaks well of them—or perhaps of Wilder’s growing clout on noir is grounded neither in personal creation nor in translation of the lot—that they permitted him to go to script on the project. another tradition into film terms. Rather it is a self-contained Among other things, the Breen office missive reflection of American cultural preoccupations in film form. In condemned the piece for permitting Walter Neff to demonstrate short, it is the unique example of a wholly American film style. redeeming qualities, and added: ‘The general low tone and sordid That may seem a substantial claim to make for a group flavor makes it, in our judgment, thoroughly unacceptable for of films whose plots frequently turn on deadly violence or sexual screen presentation.’ obsession, whose catalogue of characters includes numbers of down-and-out private eyes, desperate women, and petty But really the bluntness and hardness of Stanwyck’s criminals. Nor does the visceral unease felt by a viewer who work was something essentially new, and the alacrity with which watches a shadowy form move across a lonely street or who it was imitated in film after film of the 40s is one of the hears the sound of car tires creeping over wet asphalt interesting, largely unexplored questions of our movie and social automatically translate into sociological assertions about history. paranoia or postwar guilt. At the same time, it is clear that the emergence of film noir coincides with these and other popular No other film Wilder made has had Double Indemnity’s sentiments at large in America. “Film noir” is literally “black influence on the history of American movies. It is equally certain film,” not just in the sense of being full of physically dark that no film he ever made has a larger claim on our regard. Or on images, nor of reflecting a dark mood in American society, but his own. Wilder once said it was his favorite film. Asked to equally, almost empirically, as a black slate on which the culture explain himself he said simply: ‘ It has the fewest mistakes.’ And could inscribe its ills and in the process produce a catharsis to that, probably is as good a place as any to rest the case for this help relieve them. daring and masterful movie.

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2013 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVII: September 24 Delmer Daves 3:10 to Yuma 1957 October 1 Kon Ichikawa Fires on the Plain 1959 October 8 Peter Bogdanovich The Last Picture Show 1971 October 15 Sidney Lumet Network 1976 October 22 Bruce Jackson & Diane Christian Death Row 1979 October 29 Jim Jarmusch Dead Man 1995 November 5 Pedro Almodóvar Talk to Her 2002 November 12 Charlie Kaufman Synecdoche, New York 2008 November 19 Wim Wenders Pina 2011 November 26 Baz Luhrmann The Great Gatsby 2013 The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

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