Double Indemnity Screenplay
Double Indemnity Screenplay
Originally uploaded by Thomas Roche Recently, I thought to myself, "Hey, there's money in Hollywood, right? Huh. I should learn to write that shit." I figured I would learn from the masters. That was a terrible idea. Vintage screenplays are formatted completely differently than contemporary ones; after reading a few of them, I haven't the foggiest fucking idea how to write a screenplay. In fact, I'm more confused than ever. It's alright, however, because my "connected" friends tell me, in fact, there isn't any money in Hollywood anymore; it's all remakes and reboots for the next ten years. Everybody's tapped out, so movies are pretty much greenlit only if they're, y'know, "re-imaginings" of The Partridge Family, TJ Hooker and/or Webster, preferably without any resemblance to the originals because, let's face it, that shit sucks.
However, I did stumble across at least one good experience, completely in spite of myself.
If you have any interest in noir, screenplays, movies, popular American literature, or the fact that life sucks and human beings as a philosophical and moral construct quite simply blow chunks, this facsimile edition of the "Double Indemnity" script by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler is a must-read, like the unparalleled -- but flawed -- novel by James M. Cain.
In fact, I believe it just may be the best screenplay for a crime movie ever written -- with the Maltese Falcon running either a close second or just barely edging Indemnity out, depending on my mood. The script is recreated in exact typographical detail; there are even handwritten notes from the original, whether by Wilder or Chandler I couldn't begin to speculate, but I get goosebumps just thinking about either of them scrawling notes while glaring at each other.
Because the very best part of this amazing screenplay from an amazing book (with a crappy ending, which the screenplay remedies)? It's the story in Jeffrey Meyers's introduction of just how much Chandler hated working with Billy Wilder, and just how fussy and insane Wilder found Chandler.
According to the introduction, Chandler actually went to movie company execs and demanded that Mr. Wilder not wave his cane under Chandler's nose or assign him arbitrary tasks, like "Ray, open the window, will you?" "Ray, close the blinds, will you?" Chandler was also pissed off that Wilder wore his hat indoors. Honestly, the idea of Raymond Chandler, wry sarcastic tough-guy author from England sitting there stewing while Billy Wilder asks him to open the window -- I mean, hell! Could anyone MAKE this stuff up?
That is not to distract from the point that, despite its weak ending, this is one of the most nearly perfect imperfect crime novels ever written, and the brilliant screenplay by Wilder and Chandler completely remedies the weak ending with a one-two punch that leaves you gasping. When Edward G. Robinson lights that match? Fuck's sake, man. You know it's all over: It's the death of the human soul, people, and little time to mourn it.
The screenplay also crowbars Chandler's brilliance out of the master's main shortcoming, in my opinion -- that being his tendency to write detective novels that linger on incredibly confusing details that, honestly, I don't give a damn about. For all that Chandler is a poetic stylist with no peer, his plots could get bogged down in details and repeated red herrings to the point where I always feel like I have no idea what's actually going on and, more importantly, don't care.
Cain was nothing like that. He was straightforward to a fault -- almost to the point of being blockheaded. It seems evident that Chandler thought Cain an inferior writer for this reason. I believe it's Chandler's disdain for Cain that led to his and Wilder's tapping into a breezy, cynical, world-weary tone that was 100% Chandler, 100% Cain, and 100% f#*@!#ing genius. They just don't write 'em like this any more.
Read the novel, see the movie, gape in awe at the genius of it all. This is classic America, A-list noir, the soul of the nation laid open and bloody with a tire iron.