Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in a scene from Double Indemnity.
If one were to construct a Venn diagram about the classic period of film noir, Double Indemnity would surely occupy the center. It checks all the boxes of the themes, motifs, and styles mostly associated with film noir that fans of the genre – that’s really a cinematic movement – have come to love and recognize. Billy Wilder’s adaptation of James M. Cain’s hardboiled novel was more lyrically sound than the book and proved that while noir was most often regulated to B-level productions, a few could muster A-level prestige with the right group of above-the-line and below-the-line talent.
Authors Alain Silver and James Ursini, the duo behind the “Film Noir Reader” series, tag team to give noir fans the quintessential behind-the-scenes account on the making of a classic. This exhaustive recounting doesn’t just look at the production and what happened on the Paramount Studios lot (like as to why Barbara Stanwyck wears such an awful wig in the film). Nor does it shy away from the difficult collaboration Wilder experienced in writing the script with famed crime writer Raymond Chandler.
The first two chapters offer true crime origins and context. Generations before coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial turned news into a media circus there was the Ruth Snyder and Henry Gray murder case. A housewife and a salesman have an affair then hatch a plan to kill her husband and claim insurance money upon his death. Sounds like something concocted for a film noir. That’s because it was.
Silver and Ursini toss readers into the deep end of pool and how the Snyder-Gray case was such a sensation that to not cover it would be a crime. 180 journalists covered the trial, including Ben Hecht and James M. Cain. The former would make his way to Hollywood and collaborate with the likes of Howard Hawks (Scarface) and Alfred Hitchcock (Notorious). The latter would leave the newspaper business and try his hand at screenwriting only to fail miserably. But when he confined himself with writing a novel, Cain created the hardboiled hit The Postman Always Rings Twice. His next work, a novella, was an imitation of sorts as it had another bored housewife, adultery, and a murdered husband. Only this time instead of the other man being a drifter he was an insurance salesman. It was called Double Indemnity. All the major studios wanted to make it. Joseph Breen and the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) wanted to curtail the material from ever being produced.
By laying the story’s foundation and profiling Cain, Chandler, and Wilder, From the Moment They Met It Was Murder gives us the meat of filming (including casting, shooting locations, Edith Head’s costumes) before putting a bow on the proceedings by tying Double Indemnity to the rising movement of film noir.
Regrettably, Silver and Ursini’s book does, at times, resort to speculation when documented accounts can’t be substantiated. In spite of this mix of commentary with facts, the amount of detail around changes made from tech rehearsals to the shooting script can’t be understated. It actually might give too many details about the production to turn off classic film novices. Minutiae about production finances and salaries are easy to skim or skip.
To be honest, the best bits involve refining the script, detailing the ending that the public never got to see, and a brief dissertation about the film noir movement – including the entry that best serves as a demarcation line from classic to neo-noir. Sometimes dry, other times engaging and informative, From the Moment They Met It Was Murder is tailored for those who want to know more about Double Indemnity but may want to travel down different darkened alleys to get there. Just as noir intended.
