Double Indemnity: Two Writers Who Could Not Stand
Double Indemnity (1944)
Wilder and Raymond Chandler loathed each other for five months and produced the most quotable script in noir.
Runtime
107 minutes
Director
Billy Wilder
Budget
$927,000
Cinematography
John F. Seitz
"How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?
"Walter Neff · Double Indemnity · 1944
A Confession On A Dictaphone
The film opens with its ending: a wounded insurance salesman talking into a dictaphone at night, addressing his boss, laying out how he killed a man for money and a woman and got neither. Everything after that is the how, which means suspense comes from process rather than outcome. Wilder hired Chandler to adapt Cain because Cain was unavailable, and the two spent the collaboration in mutual contempt, Chandler complaining about Wilder's hat and Wilder about Chandler's drinking. The dialogue that came out of it is armour plated, every line a double meaning about speed limits or life insurance. Fred MacMurray had built a career on decency and was terrified of the part. Barbara Stanwyck asked about the blonde wig and Wilder told her it was supposed to look cheap.
Watching Double Indemnity
Dread
/
Section
The Hays Office forced the removal of a filmed gas chamber epilogue, so the film ends on the two men in the office instead, which almost everyone agrees is the better ending.
Chandler has a silent cameo outside Keyes's office, his only screen appearance, and he wrote afterwards that working with Wilder shortened his life.