By now, any true cinephile must know the true meaning of film noir. There’s been long enough to get it right, after all it’s supreme period is generally thought of as about 1940 to 1959, and since then we occasionally have neo-noir. Any old gangsters armed with gats (guns) aren’t necessarily noir, and any old moll (loose woman) isn’t necessarily a femme fatale, though it’s often irritatingly said that they are. And any enthusiast knows that the 1944 film “Double Indemnity” heads many lists as the greatest noir made. Here is a book about it.
The original “Double Indemnity” was a 1936 crime novel by American journalist-turned-novelist James M. Cain (1892-1977, M for Mallahan). It was first published in Liberty magazine that year as an eight-part serial, and later republished as one of “three long short tales” in the collection “Three of a Kind” in 1944. The book is based on a true story, the 1927 murder of Albert Snyder of the New York City borough of Queens that was perpetrated by his wife and her lover.
Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd Gray had an affair then hatched a plot to kill her husband and claim insurance money. On March 20, 1927 she claimed two “giant Italians” had broken into the house and knocked her unconscious. They tied her up and left her in the hallway, she said. Then, while her 9-year-old daughter was still asleep, they had killed Albert and stolen her jewellery.
Police were immediately suspicious because Snyder didn’t look like she’d been knocked out. They also found her “stolen” jewellery stuffed under her mattress. Within a few hours she gave up the name of the married corset salesman she was sleeping with – Gray – and pinned the murder on him.
When the police got to Gray he confessed but accused Snyder of seducing him and planning the murder of her husband, an art editor at Motorboat magazine. Police also discovered that just before her husband’s murder, Snyder had forged a double indemnity insurance policy in his name for nearly $100,000 in the event of his accidental death.
Besides the failed insurance fraud, one of the most notable aspects of the crime was how ineptly Snyder and Gray committed it. They killed Albert by hitting him with a weight from a window sash, stuffing chloroform-soaked cotton up his nose and strangling him with picture-frame wire. After their story of a poorly staged “break-in” fell through, the former lovebirds immediately turned on each other.
Journalist Damon Runyon called it the “Dumbbell Murder” because it was just so dumb, and it received extensive press attention, generating huge public interest. The courtroom was packed every day and Snyder and Gray were convicted. Both died in the electric chair on the same day in January 1928.
Cain attended the trial while working as a journalist in New York and he cemented his name among crime aficionados by also writing “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1934) and “Mildred Pierce” (1941), both memorably filmed, the former several times (seven according to one count).
His novel “Double Indemnity” in 1943 served as the basis for the film of the same name in 1944, adapted for the screen by the novelist Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, the latter also directing the film. These were two great men in their fields.
To repeat, the term double indemnity refers to payment by a life insurance policy of twice the face value when death results from an accident (for example, a car accident) as opposed to a health problem (such as cardiac arrest).
Having been released in 1944, that makes 2024 the film’s 80th anniversary, and “From The Moment They Met it Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir” by Alain Silver and James Ursini promises the complete behind-the-scenes story of this quintessential noir, with its true crime origins and impact on film history.
Silver and Ursini recount that from actual murder to magazine fiction to film, the history of “Double Indemnity” is as complex as anything that appeared on screen during noir’s classic period. Born of the 1927 tabloid-sensation “crime of the century”’ that inspired Cain, Hollywood quickly bid on the film rights. But throughout the 1930s the strict Hays Code of censorship made certain that no studio could green-light a murder melodrama based on real events.
Then in 1943 writer and newly minted director Wilder hired hard-boiled novelist Chandler to help him write a script that would be acceptable to industry censors. Wilder cajoled a top cast into coming aboard: the star-quality Barbara Stanwyck in her memorable turn as an ultimate femme fatale; Fred MacMurray cast against type as her partner in crime; and Edward G. Robinson as a dogged claims investigator.
In a famous line, MacMurray as insurance investigator Walter Neff is an innocent like any other until the day he meets the beautiful and dangerous Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck). He falls under her spell and helps kill her husband. “I killed for money and a woman,” Neff says. “I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman.”
Besides Chandler, other key collaborators were veteran cinematographer John Seitz, costume designer Edith Head and composer Miklós Rózsa, the Budapest-born tunesmith known for nearly 100 film scores that earned him three Oscars. The final film became one of the earliest studio noirs to gain critical and commercial success, including being nominated for seven Oscars. It didn’t win any, one theory being that having been filmed and released during the dark days of World War II, the film was not popular with the Academy (and its members were behind a rival film).
However, it powerfully influenced the burgeoning noir movement, spawned many imitators and affected the later careers of its cast and crew. Silver and Ursini say its impact on filmmakers and audiences is still felt eight decades later.
These co-authors have written more than 20 books together previously, mostly centered on film noir. The first four chapters of “From The Moment They Met it Was Murder” outline essential building blocks of “Double Indemnity”. They cover the rise of true crime stories in the early 20th century and specifically lay out the details and public fascination with the 1927 Ruth Snyder case.
The second chapter focuses on Cain, while the third and fourth chapters profile Chandler and Wilder. From there, the book digs into the details about the making of the movie, including its stars, costumes and filming locations. The final chapter connects “Double Indemnity“ to the rise of film noir as a movement.
Here are the script changes, performance choices, financial matters and other minutiae (remember that wig?) about this landmark piece of cinematic art.
