When Billy Wilder Met Raymond Chandler
In 1943, writer/director Billy Wilder wanted to make a gritty film noir. He was under contract to Paramount Pictures and he told studio brass that his dream project was James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. A studio bidding war ensued and Paramount lost out on the story rights to MGM. Undaunted, Wilder shifted his attention to another story by Cain. It was called Double Indemnity and was included in a collection of novellas titled “Three of a Kind.”
The story is about an insurance salesman who falls for an alluring femme fatale. The woman purchases a life insurance policy from the salesman with a “double indemnity” clause that doubles the insurance payout if the woman’s husband dies. The wife convinces the salesman to help her kill her husband but the plan goes awry when the salesman’s colleague, an insurance investigator, becomes suspicious.
Wilder’s screenwriting colleague at the time was Charles Brackett. Brackett felt the story was “too grim” and dropped out of the project. Needing a co-writer with experience in the dark world of crime stories, Wilder turned to novelist Raymond Chandler whose first novel The Big Sleep (1939) achieved critical acclaim.
Chandler was one of the originators of the hardboiled school of detective fiction. Though he didn’t begin writing until his 40’s, his books quickly gained…
