Overview

Richard Schickel’s study of Billy Wilder’s 1944 noir classic Double Indemnity traces in fascinating detail the genesis and realisation of the film: its literary origins in James M. Cain’s hard-boiled crime novel, the difficult relations between Wilder and his scriptwriter Raymond Chandler, the casting of a reluctant Fred MacMurray, and the late decision to cut the expensively filmed execution sequence from the final release. Schickel places Double Indemnity in the context of early 1940s Hollywood and the emergence of a new kind of crime thriller that later became known as film noir. The film was a cornerstone of the genre: its script creates two unforgettable criminal characters, the cynically manipulative femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and the likeable but amoral Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray). Billy Wilder’s direction enmeshes them in dramatic chiaroscuro, as bright California sunlight casts Venetian-blind shadows across dusty rooms and harsh lamplight slices through the night. In his afterword to this new edition, James Naremore pays tribute to Schickel’s analysis of Double Indemnity and its contexts, and considers debates surrounding the film’s conclusion.

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9781805750215

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Richard Schickel (1933 – 2017) was an American film historian, journalist, author, documentarian, and film and literary critic. He was a film critic for Time from 1965–2010, and also wrote for Life and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. James Naremore is Chancellors' Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, USA. Among his books are The Magic World of Orson Welles (2015), Acting in the Cinema (1988), More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts (2008), On Kubrick (British Film Institute, Revised Edition, 2023) and Sweet Smell of Success (2010) and Letter from an Unknown Woman (2021) in the BFI Film Classics series.

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