When Wilder asked him to play Neff, MacMurray said, "You're making the biggest mistake of your life!" Later MacMurray said, "I never dreamed it would be the best picture I ever made." Wilder Changed the Sweet Boy-Meets-Girl Situations In 1943 Fred MacMurray was known for playing easy-going, happy-go-lucky characters. Eventually Wilder realized he needed an actor who could play a cynic and a nice guy.
Numerous actors turned down the role of Walter Neff, the bored insurance salesman tempted to commit murder: Alan Ladd, Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy, James Cagney and others. He said, "Then take the part." Years later she said she had been grateful ever since for taking the role. Stanwyck and MacMurray Turned Down the Rolesīarbara Stanwyck, at the time the highest paid actress in Hollywood as well as the highest paid woman in America, at first turned down the role of the psychopathic killer Phyllis Dietrichson. In a later interview, she said after reading the script: "I went to his office, and I said to him, I love the script and I love you, but I’m a little afraid, after all these years of playing heroines to play the part of an out–and–out cold–blooded killer." Wilder responded, "Are you an actress or a mouse?" She answered that she hoped she were an actress. If you are going to collaborate, you need an opponent to bounce things off."īilly Wilder also wrote and directed other film classics such as Ninotchka, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Sabrina and The Seven Year Itch. "If two people think alike," he said, "it's like two men pulling at one end of a rope. However, Wilder believed their discord enhanced their collaboration. Cain story, as one of the best, if not perfect, noir film. A June 1944 film review in Time magazine called it the "nattiest, nastiest, most satisfying melodrama." Chandler and Wilder: A Tumultuous Writing Teamīilly Wilder and Raymond Chandler wrote the screenplay over approximately 12 weeks, a volatile writing partnership that Wilder thought drove Chandler back to drinking. Wilder, along with his co-writer Dashiell Hammett, skillfully combines these two classic dramatic forms to create a tale of moral comeuppance that is resonant with human pathos.Some view Double Indemnity (1944), the dark, suspenseful adaptation of the James M. This call for redemption through action has been handed down to us from the Medieval Morality Play. He is making things right for Dietrichson’s daughter, Lola. Yet this is what Neff is doing with his confession. However, Greek Tragedy does not require that the protagonist compensate for his error through action. Dietrichson, the question is not, “Who did it?” Or, “Will he get caught?” It is, “How did this regular-guy insurance salesman come to be a murderer?” And then, “What brought him to confess?” Double Indemnity adheres to the dictates of Greek Tragedy in that Walter Neff sees his error before his demise. With his confession at the beginning to his part in the murder of Mr.
But he has an underside of latent criminality. Walter Neff is an all-American salesman affable and independent. Posted by Jennine Lanouette on Wednesday, October 30th, 2013Īlthough Billy Wilder claimed he only wanted to tell entertaining stories, his films are rich with thematic underpinnings and complex characters.