Archive Talks: Double Indemnity
- This is a past program
Presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Learn more at cinema.ucla.edu.
In-person: Alain Silver and James Ursini, authors of From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir
When Billy Wilder went looking for a property that would "set Hollywood back on its heels," he selected James M. Cain's hardboiled novel about a corrupt insurance salesman who conspires with a scheming housewife to murder her husband for his insurance. Adapting with hard-boiled writer Raymond Chandler, did more than shock audiences with this sordid true crime tale of lust and greed. He and Chandler, along with their iconic cast — Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson — launched one of the most influential and enduring styles in film history: film noir. No one has celebrated and documented film noir’s particulars and its influence than historians Alain Silver and James Ursini. Their latest book, From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir, dives deep into the intersecting histories — criminal, literary, cinematic — on the occasion of the film’s 80th anniversary. The Archive is honored to host Silver and Ursini for this special screening.
35mm, b&w, 107 min. Director: Billy Wilder. Screenplay: Raymond Chandler, Billy Wilder.
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