Double indemnity: BFI Film Classics

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About This Book

A new kind of film emerged from Hollywood in the early 1940's, thrillers which derived their plots from the hard-boiled school of crime fiction. Appearing in 1944, Double Indemnity was a key film in the definition of the genre which came to be known as film noir. Its script creates two unforgettable criminal characters: the cynically manipulative Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and the likable but amoral Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray). Billy Wilder's brilliant direction enmeshes them in chiaroscuro patterns, the bright California sun throwing shadows of venetian blinds across dusty rooms, shafts of harsh lamplight cutting through the night. Richard Schickel traces in fascinating detail the genesis of the film: its literary origins in the crime fiction of the 1930s, the difficult relations between Wilder and scriptwriter Raymond Chandler, the casting of a reluctant Fred MacMurray…