Double Indemnity

Richard Schickel 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 from the film the expensively-shot final sequence of Neff’s execution.

Schickel’s 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’. Double Indemnity was a key film for this new 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 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.

In his new afterword for this edition, critic James Naremore pays tribute to Schickel’s analysis of the film and its contexts, and considers arguments around the film’s ending as conceived by Wilder and as eventually screened.

Author Biography

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.