A Canterbury Tale (1944)

A Canterbury Tale (The Archers, 1944) Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (known collectively as "The Archers") begin their tale where Chaucer did in his "The Canterbury Tales" (their lines only slightly different in translation than the text):

WHEN APRIL with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein  with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)—
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
And specially from every shire’s end
Of England they to Canterbury wend,
The holy blessed martyr there to seek
Who helped them when they lay so ill and weak.

They're setting place, showing ancient maps, and then—at the appropriate verse—show us the pilgrimage as it was, with ox-carts and donkeys, and peasantry making their ways over the hills, then the close-up of a nobleman who sees a falcon high in flight. And—cut! (24 years before Kubrick did something similar)—the falcon is replaced by a fighter-plane that zooms towards us and over the head—cut!—of a British soldier circa 1944 who watches it (in the same frame composition and is probably the same actor, now in modern military dress) and the narration begins again...with another verse over landscapes not too far afield from what we saw before:

600 years have passed. What would they see, 

Dan Chaucer and his goodly company today? 

The hills and valleys are the same.

Gone are the forests since the enclosures came.

Hedgerows have sprung. The land is under plow, 

and orchards bloom with blossoms on the bow.

Sussex and Kent are like a garden fair,

but sheep still graze upon the ridges there.

The pilgrims still wends above the wield,

through wood and break and many a fertile field.

But, though so little has changed since Chaucer's day.

Another sort of pilgrim walks the way.

 

And a tank heaves into the frame and a line of those mechanized vehicles starts to wend its their own way along the pilgrim's trail on the way to Canterbury. As subtle and artistic as The Archers could be, they could also be brutal in how they juxtaposed for contrast, sometimes uncomfortably so, even for modern audiences thinking that sophistication can only be found in late-model movies. But, with A Canterbury Tale, the filmmakers linked the past and the present, while also acknowledging the omnipresence of change. For no matter whether its war or peace, or what happens to the landscape, the one constant are the pilgrims in need of hope and maybe a miracle.

Three people are in the town of Chillingbourne, Kent, a village on the train-track to Canterbury. Two are soldiers, one a Brit, one a Yank, and a "land-girl" who's taking part in helping farmers while men-folk are away to war. They are all "in-service" but beyond that they have nothing in common...except that they're stuck in Chillingbourne. They meet by happenstance when the Yank, Sgt. Bob Johnson (played by Sgt. John Sweet, chosen for "authenticity" rather than, initially, Burgess Meredith) gets off the train too early being lurched awake by the conductor's announcement of "Next stop...Canterbury." He's a stranger in a strange land at the wrong stop in the middle of the night and he recruits help from the other two, Sgt. Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price) and Alison Smith (Sheila Sim) to find lodgings for the night.

One complication, however: while making their way through town to get their bearings, Alison is attacked from the shadows by a stranger who throws glue in her hair. Evidently, there's a lot of that going around as she's the eleventh victim of such an attack—she'll meet other such girls in her farm duties. While she goes through numerous shampooings to try to rinse out the gunk, Sgt. Johnson reports the attack to the local magistrate Thomas Colpepper (Eric Portman), who is curiously unmoved and suggests that women should not be out at night after a black-out curfew. After all, Canterbury itself has just been bombed by the Germans.

Johnson is convinced to stay the weekend and the three determine to investigate who the mysterious "glueman" in town could be. The town is full of potential suspects, clues abound, and it does help to take the minds off things like the war, one's part in it, and its consequences past and future. A little mystery can distract from things of great import, and yet, there's the countryside and its history and the current residents of that storied real estate, which managed to survive Kings, Queens, technologies and even the German war machine. Instead of being a mere stop-over, their encounters and walkabouts bring out a resonance and maybe even a communion with the past.

Bombed out buildings, but Canterbury remains untouched.

For, despite the distraction, these three are in need. Each is suffering a loss, a regret, a yearning that makes them incomplete, even as an indeterminate future threatens all of them. It may be coincidence that they are all there at that time and at that place, but without seeking it out—hell, they don't even know the history of it—for those acres and shrines to echo what they did in Chaucer's time for those who made their own pilgrimages in their time of need. It is Colpepper who clues them in to the storied land and serves as unofficial chaperone for the trio, and indirectly guides them to the path that they don't know they seek.

The Archers, of course, lean into Chaucer and the romance of the land and its past (and the value and benefit of the pastoral existence—which they would continue in the next year's I Know Where I'm Going!—Powell called these films their "anti-capitalist period"), but there's another influence, cinematically. A Canterbury Tale was made in 1944, 5 years after The Wizard of Oz and the story of strangers, bonded together, off on a heroes' quest traveling to a source for "reward or penance" is shared by both.*   

Of course, Wizard is fantasy, a fairy tale. A Canterbury Tale is fanciful. But, both have rich denouements that strike the heart and do so in quite different ways. Even though all the characters in both stories realize their hearts' desires, they come to them not knowing what they do not know. Oz and Canterbury provide the realization of their dreams, but Canterbury has no definite ending (despite an American-bound re-edit by Powell that has more of a conclusion—fortunately, I saw the original British version), the last act is open-ended, with hope for the future, if an uncertain one.

A Canterbury Tale is one of the best movie experiences I've seen this year. It left me completely enchanted.

 * The story even shares the element that both sets of heroes have already possessed what they lack—they just don't know it yet.

Laura

Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944) A favorite for many film-goers for the unique reason that it's a multi-hyphenate of genres. Laura ticks off many boxes: a detective story, a murder mystery, a love story, a ghost story, a "woman's picture," and a proto-film noir.

The story of the murder of advertising executive Laura Hunt (played by Gene Tierney) is an investigation into the gossipy underbelly of New York high society, contrasting the low-down jealousies and back-biting of the rich and famous amid the glamorous fashions and elite penthouse settings, all seen through the eyes of an unimpressed gumshoe trying to see the truth behind the lace curtains.

 

The film's production history is a tempestuous one, filled with office politics at 20th Century Fox--studio head Darryl F. Zanuck had an on-going feud with producer Otto Preminger, but with Zanuck in Europe with the Army Signal Corps documenting the war effort, he had no say in Preminger's work on an adaptation of the property, which came to him when it was still the first draft of a stage-play called "Ring Twice for Laura" written by Vera Caspary. Preminger saw it as a good vehicle to make his directorial debut, and tried collaborating with the author to make it a viable project for the stage...and screen.

Ultimately, the two parted ways and Caspary turned her story into a 7-part serial for Collier's magazine with play's original title, which when re-published in book-form was shortened to, simply, "Laura" and was bought for development at 20th Century Fox.

It falls on jaded New York police detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) to find out who murdered the influential ad executive Laura Hunt (Tierney), and forensics doesn't help as she was killed by a shotgun blast to the face just inside her swanky apartment. No murder weapon has been found, so he makes the rounds of Laura's acquaintances to see if he can come up with any motivation behind the killing. First, he sees Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), notorious newspaper columnist, who, after initially dismissing the ambitious Miss Hunt, became her Svengali/mentor. Lydecker used his column to promote the up-and-coming designer, but also to disparage any suitors approaching Laura on a romantic basis.

That didn't seem to dissuade Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), Laura's fianceé at the time of her death and boy-toy of her aunt (Judith Anderson). McPherson gives them all third degree burns, but is no closer to cracking the case: which of these high-toned, impeccably-dressed lizards would have, well, just the bad taste to do in Laura? Appearances may be deceiving, so he doubles down on Laura's old haunts, her apartment, going through her letters and diary, trying to read between the lines, looking to her thoughts on who might be the culprit. Instead of learning more about any suspects, he learns more about the girl, finding a woman of ambition, yes, but, a different sort than the duplicitous phony-balonies she was navigating amongst.

That's where "the twist" comes in. McPherson finds himself falling in love with the dead woman, and things only get more complicated from there, deepening the resentments that the suspects have against the lower-class detective.

Once Preminger had the script he wanted (with some venomous contributions from Ring Lardner Jr.), but his plans to direct were vetoed when Zanuck came back from Europe. Preminger was relegated to producer, and the studio head ultimately gave the director's chair to Rouben Mamoulian, who must have sensed that his producer would lose in any battle with Zanuck, and so started to re-write the script and do his own casting, using a painting by his wife for the portrait of Laura, and favoring the more sinister Laird Cregar (Hitchcock's The Lodger) as Lydecker over Preminger's choice, the slight and haughty Clifton Webb.

 

Preminger and Webb prevailed, but none of the cast was happy with Mamoulian's direction in the first days of filming, where he ignored Tierney, Andrews and Webb, and encouraged a stagey performance by Anderson. A mutiny began among the cast and Zanuck was forced to fire Mamoulian and replace him with his antagonist, Otto Preminger. Preminger kept the cast, but re-staged all of Mamoulian's work, even going so far as to toss the portrait by the director's wife.

But, there was one more ingredient that was needed to make the film an immortal classic. Zanuck assigned David Raksin to do the score and the composer met with the TCF head following a screening: "I liked the picture at once but was disheartened to hear [producer Darryl] Zanuck immediately zero in on an essential scene in which...the detective assigned to solve the ostensible murder, wanders disconsolately around Laura's apartment at night. I gathered that the sequence had already been severely shortened, and now it was about to be reduced still further. . . . There was a horrified hush when I was heard to interject, 'But, if you cut that scene, nobody will understand that the detective is in love with Laura.' Zanuck turned toward me, then ... told me that he was about to trim the sequence again precisely because he felt that as it stood the audience would not understand it. . . . I persisted. 'This is one of those scenes,' said I, 'in which music could tip the balance--tell the audience how the man feels. And if it doesn't work, you can still trim the sequence.'"

Meeting with Preminger, Raksin was also disheartened to hear the director had planned to use Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" for the score, and told the director that he would have a better substitute by the next Monday morning. He was dissatisfied with his work—the legend goes—until he finally got around to reading the "Dear John" letter his wife had sent him. That was the inspiration for the "Theme from Laura", which Preminger was impressed by, Zanuck approved (the sequence wasn't trimmed any further) which became a huge hit, quite apart from the movie. It did add one element that was missing from the movie, even if it hinted at motivation—sentimentality, the melancholy sort. And it hammers home the point that love is such a strange beast that it can make one fall in love with a ghost. It is a love story, after all.

It was nominated for five Oscars (winning for Cinematography) and in 1999, it was voted into the National Film Registry. But, the ultimate test is that it still holds up today (even after being copied for at least one episode of every detective show on television) for its wit, sophistication, and downright grisliness. Good movies are not all that common. It takes a certain magic, an indefinable "something" of happenstance that makes one more than its separate elements. Given its turbulent production history and how many times it avoided mis-steps, Laura is something of a miracle.

Frank Sinatra had a hit with "Laura"

but there's something about Raksin's scoring that is...haunting.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges, 1944) In the perpetual mating dance that writer-director Preston Sturges did around the blue-noses of the Breen Office, there was never a more sassy tango than The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, as sonorous a razz-berry, as flagrant a nose-thumbing as any director has done to his oppressive censors. 

Censors. It may seem odd in this "anything goes" era of film-making—where even dismemberment gets a pass for 13 year olds (but bare breasts get an "R"), where the foulest of epithets are uttered from the mouths of babes and fart jokes are de rigueur in kids' movies—that at the time this movie was made, you couldn't say the word "pregnant," or "virgin," men and women could not appear in the same bed, the subject of sex was merely metaphorical (as opposed to mythical in a teen movie) and represented by a camera pan to crashing ocean waves, burning fires, or shattered mirrors.

Yes, kids, we were Amish back then. At least, actresses weren't asked to wear veils...unless they were over 40 and the vaseline on the lens didn't hide the crow's feet.*

In this the script is an intricate little puzzle of studio "issues" that interlock to form a script that should have raised so many red-flags (and did), but take any of them out of the story and it would look like you were unpatriotic, immoral, or a perfect candidate for ex-communication. 

Of course, it's a comedy. Set and produced during war-time. And the sacred subjects of that war—God, Country, and The Troops—are all given a jaundiced eye that would come from living with a bellyful of bromides while just trying to eke out a living. Though clear-eyed and sentimental in the right places, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek can look at a manufactured convenience and still call it "bologna," and then acknowledge that, sometimes, bologna'll do the job. Even the movie poster has a conspiratorial wink in it. Like any good love story.  

Poor Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken). He's been in love with Gertrude Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) since they were kids, and he's got it bad. "I wish you were in a lot of trouble, Trudy, so I can help you."

Note to Norval: You, uh...you've REALLY got to be careful what you want. Especially when it comes to Trudy. She's only got eyes for the servicemen going overseas. She wants to do her part for our "fine and clean young men" and to give 'em a good time before they go off to war, over the objections of her constable father (Sturges pillar William Demarest). He forbids her to go to the USO dance on Tuesday, because as a veteran of The War to End All Wars, he knows servicemen have their minds on only one thing. "Oh no," says Trudy. "They're not like that any more! These are good boys, noble boys." But Pappy is unconvinced. So she conspires with Norval to take her to the movies, and once there, she dumps him, takes his car, and does a pub-crawl with the "nice boys," telling Norvel she'll meet him back at the flicks at 1:15. 

She doesn't make it back until 8:00 am, with the car in tatters, her memory a little shaky, and Norval in the Kockenlocker gun-sights to take the blame when they get her home. With legitimate reasons. 

Or even illegitimate ones.

Evidently, she did more than her part for the troops. Trudy doesn't remember a lot about what happened that night, it's kind of a blur. She thinks she might have gotten married, but she's not sure—she can't remember the guy's name. So, she keeps it to herself—the boys are shipping out, who'll know? Then, there's the little matter of her being pregnant. So, there's a double puzzle: she can't tell anybody she's married without a husband, but she's pregnant without ever having been married. Maybe. What to do, what to do? 

It's a scandal. The kind that small towns hush up and don't talk about; but what fun would that be? There's a way out of the problem—don't even go there—but it can't go smoothly, and before the solution can be found, it has to get more complicated—at the top of its lungs. It even turns political, with guest appearances by The Great McGinty (Brian Donlevy) and "The Boss" (Akim Tamiroff), from Sturges' directorial debut. 

 

I've never liked Betty Hutton. I've always found her loud and grating and usually playing scatter-brained simps. Well, her Trudy Kockenlocker is a scatter-brained simp, but Hutton makes her sympathetic and funny, with a perpetual look of comic confusion, exhausted with dis-belief. She's all too willing to do physical comedy in an extremely unladylike fashion (one of which involves her getting clocked by one of those mirror-globes at an out-of-control jitterbug dance). She's a complete joy in this movie, whether by herself, matching stammers with the brilliant Bracken (who moves so fast in this movie, I'm surprised he's not a perpetual blur), or sharing sisterly woes with her wise-acre sister (the nifty Diana Lynn), who is the Horatio to her densley populated Hamlet. Never has a movie had such fun in being irreverent about such American ideals as The War Effort, and even Motherhood. 

In 2001, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek was selected for the National Film Registry. This American classic is also #54 on the AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs" list of the funniest movies ever made. And it's somewhere near the top of the most boldly audacious movies ever created in a climate of repression. Add the caveat of taking such subversive gleefulness in its presentation, and it would be #1.

 

* It should be noted that once the Breen Office died the death of a thousand indignities in the late '50's and 60's, and subject matter was freed up for public consumption, There have been waves of motion picture permissiveness—we approach a line of the verboten and then back off, a few years later we creep up to the line and slink back in a cycle that seems more like evolution than revolution. There is still censorship, but the censor is the marketplace, and a film-maker must consider the box-office potential of his choices, as filtered by the specious and contrary dictates of the MPAA. Except for the screw-balls at the Ratings Board, it seems a more fair system: "Yeah, you can do that...but it's gonna cost ya."

Hail the Conquering Hero

Hail the Conquering Hero (Preston Sturges, 1944) You can take "Semper Fi" just a little too far sometimes. Small-town schnook Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) is drinking alone in a bar. Washed out of his beloved Marine Corps for chronic hay fever, he's been working in a San Diego shipyard ever since and writing letters, full of fiction, to his Mom, a Marine widow, that he's fighting overseas. He spots a group of jarheads (led by Sturges regular William Demarest) trying to buy a communal beer with 15¢ between 'em, and buys them a round.

When they hear his tale of woe and subterfuge, the Marines take sympathetic pity on Woodrow, and concoct a story that reads like an invasion plan. Just back from Guadalcanal, they pin their medals on the kid, insist on escorting him home, and make up a cock-and-bull story about him being a hero. Anything for dear ol' Mom. But, as things tend to do in Sturges comedies, things accelerate in a dither of cross-purposes and crushed dialogue. Caught up in the manufactured patriotic fervor, the whole town sings Woodrow's praises, the bank forgiving Mom's mortgage and nominating him for Mayor (with the election only two days away!). Woodrow's genuinely appalled, but the Marines are steadfast in seeing Woodrow's dreams come true, no matter how much he protests, no matter how much he whines. No matter how much guilt he feels.

It took some guts for Sturges to make a story about blind hero-worship and unquestioning patriotic fervor during war-time (it would be controversial today and must have been even more so during the time of its release during the second World War), but emboldened by a basic cynicism (and his typical questioning of tropes), Sturges does a strafing run on a veritable gallery of targets (with the military even cooperating with the filming!) Sturges takes pot-shots at bankers, small-town in-bred politicians and the insanity of mob-rule, yet still manages to make a fairly sunny picture with a lot of laughs and a hero who's anything but.

Part of the charm of Hail the Conquering Hero is Truesmith as played by Eddie Bracken. Not much to look at, kinda dumpy with a nose that follows the slope of his fore-head without benefit of eyebrow ridges, Bracken has the same voice and manner of Mickey Rooney, a ferocity of energy and a quick way of delivering lines with maximum inflection. That he spends the entire movie frustrated, bitter and cynical doesn't lessen his appeal one jot, which is, frankly, amazing—it's something even James Stewart couldn't pull off in The Philadelphia Story (despite winning the Oscar for it).

Hail, the Conquering Hero has a couple Pacific Northwest connections: the ingenue is played by Ella Raines, who was born in the little town of Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, and is something of a noir icon for her titular role in "Phantom Lady"; and one of the Marines is played by a mug with a mushed-in face named Freddie Steele.

 

Steele was a professional middleweight boxer in the Pacific Northwest with an astounding record of wins-losses and draws of 125-5-11. Noted for his pile-driver punches, he was known as "The Tacoma Assassin," before a punch broke his breast-bone (ouch!) and he gave up the ring for the movies. He ran a legendary restaurant in Westport for many years, and his role as the one Marine who thinks that Trueblood may not deserve the false-god praise he gets is the most satisfying of the emotional through-lines in Hail, the Conquering Hero.

The Woman in the Window (1944)

The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944) The ex-patriate German film-stylist (Metropolis) makes the first of his "love-is-a-trap" film noirs with Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea. The second, Scarlet Street (Lang's next film) will be a nightmarish tale of lust, betrayal and greed that will skirt the Hays Code of having one of the triangle getting away with murder, but The Woman in the Window will be a bit more sedate...almost text-book.

Richard Wanley (Robinson) is a professor of criminal psychology, so you'd think he'd knows his stuff, but it seems he's only good at the theory. While his wife and kids are out of town for the Summer, Wanley becomes enamored with a portrait of a young woman in a store window (theory), and after a club-night with the boys (among whom is detective Raymond Massey), he comes across the woman in the flesh and accepts an invitation to her apartment. Turns out she's the moll of a notorious money-changer, see? And N.M.C. shows up at the apartment, looking to serve Wanley a Harvey Wallbanger.

Things get ugly and somebody gets dead. It's up to the Good Professor to do some Bad Things to keep his reputation intacto, not to mention his corpus.

The wonderful thing about Lang is he kept making his scary German films (like M, his "Mabuse" spy-fantasies) in Hollywood, with a budget that would make glossier his mouse-trap films. Lang knew how to tell his stories in shadow, and even include the vast area outside the frame in the mix to keep audiences guessing as to what would happen next—his protagonists (and they're not always heroes) have to run his maze of ever-tightening traps that will mean loss of freedom or death ("or worse!" as they used to say on the "Batman" TV show—which employed some Lang techniques—with this director you couldn't be sure if Death was the end of it).

Here, Lang dips his toe into the dark murky water that he will dive in head-first with Scarlet Street, sketching a nightmare scenario and cautionary tale, preparing for the final deadly masterpiece of his next film.

Provocative, stylish and downright cruel, the cinema of Fritz Lang spoke of high themes and low instincts and if he's not the father of "film-noir," he's certainly a very close uncle.*

* According to Wikipedia the term "film noir"—"black cinema"—was coined by the French Press—they also make damn fine coffee—in 1946, after the post-war arrival of American films The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Laura, Murder, My Sweet," and...The Woman in the Window. So, the five fathers of "Noir" are John Huston, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Edward Dmytryk, and Fritz Lang—three Germans and two Americans (shudder!)

Don't Make a Scene: Double Indemnity

The Story: There's no better movie about Lust Gone Wrong than Double Indemnity.  It's a noir's noir, black as pitch, and shepherded by several masters of the genre. The original tale was written by James M. Cain, who made a reputation for tales that rang twice, usually ending with a death-knell. Billy Wilder had a dark sensibility, too, with an absurdist's sense of humor and irony. Wilder was without his regular co-writer Charles Brackett, so he turned to the current master of the hard-boiled, Raymond Chandler, to help with the screenplay. The two did not get along (Wilder was expecting a tough guy, not a British English professor), but the sparks that flew between them set the script-pages alight, and smoldered with bitterness. The script is almost too good, everybody talking half-again as clever, while acting dumb as stumps. But that was sort of the point. The lusting co-conspirators were smart people who thought they knew all the angles and could get away with murder. Such is the stuff of film noir.

The principal players are interesting. Barbara Stanwyck was a seasoned professional who demonstrated a knack for both comedy and treachery in her roles, while Fred MacMurray made a comfortable living playing cowboys and handsome young beaus, but he wasn't Wilder's first choice for the role. George Raft was offered the part, but wanted to turn Walter Neff into an FBI agent who traps Phyllis Dietrichson into a murder plot, a move that seems absurd except to give Raft an opportunity to play a good guy—duplicitous, but good. MacMurray is damn near perfect in the role—a wise-acre American, confident in his charm to the point where he hasn't even realized he isn't being charming anymore. Arrogant and enjoying it.

Wilder insisted that Stanwyck cover her auburn hair with a brassy blonde wig (which prompted perpetually grousing Paramount exec Buddy DeSylva to crack "I hired Stanwyck and what I got was George Washington!"), and noting how false it looked on camera (but unwilling to change it to avoid costly re-shoots) explained it away as saying it made her look "fake." Whatever the reasons, mistake or no, it gives Stanwyck an arresting look. "Arresting" is what MacMurray's Neff should have been thinking about during this scene instead of the boy's network sexual harassment he displays throughout the scene. The look of smart-alecky amusement on his face, a satyr's glint in his eye and wolfish grin on his face, clearly communicates his interest in his client's wife. And Stanwyck's cool appraisal with arched eyebrows lends encouragement, while her words act as a bucket of cold water. She may not say it, but Stanwyck's character harbors dark thoughts and intentions even this early on in their encounters. 

And MacMurray, although known to most for his "Absent-Minded Professor" movies for Disney and the TV-series "My Three Sons," here shows a depth for drama that he would rarely get to exploit during his career. Billy Wilder would use him again as the duplicitous personnel director, Mr. Sheldrake, in The Apartment, and he played the "Judas" of the mutineers in The Caine Mutiny. 

I once had the occasion to work in a recording session with Fred MacMurray's daughter producing. We'd gotten to know each other a bit before finding out about her famous father, but I had to say it: "I know this is going to sound insulting, but I really mean it as a sincere compliment: your dad could play a really great son of a bitch."

She looked at me a moment, then smiled, and said, "Yeah, he would have loved to have heard that. Thank you."

The Set-Up: Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is always closing. An insurance salesman, he goes out to La Veliz in L.A. to see a client about renewing his auto policies. He wants the business, but the business he doesn't expect is from Detrichson's trophy wife, Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck), who appears wrapped in only a towel and a smile at the top of the foyer staircase. Mr. Dietrichson isn't at home, but she'll talk to Neff, and suddenly, this cold call heats up a little.

Action!


A-25 LIVING ROOM


Neff comes into the room and throws his briefcase on the plush davenport and tosses his hat on top of it. He looks around the room, then moves over to a baby grand piano with a sleazy Spanish shawl dangling down one side and two cabinet photographs standing in a staggered position on top. Neff glances them over: Mr. Dietrichson, age about fifty-one, a big, blocky man with glasses and a Rotarian look about him; Lola Dietrichson, age nineteen, wearing a filmy party dress and a yearning look in her pretty eyes. Neff walks away from the piano and takes a few steps back and forth across the rug. His eyes fall on a wrinkled corner. He carefully straightens it out with his foot. His back is to the archway as he hears high heels clicking on the staircase. He turns and looks through the arch.

NEFF'S VOICE The living room was still stuffy from last night's cigars.

NEFF'S VOICE The windows were closed and the sunshine coming in through the Venetian blinds showed up the dust in the air.

NEFF'S VOICE The furniture was kind of corny and old-fashioned, but it had a comfortable look, as if people really sat in it. On the piano, in couple of fancy frames, were Mr. Dietrichson and Lola, his daughter by his first wife.

NEFF'S VOICE They had a bowl of those little red goldfish on the table behind the davenport, but, to tell you the truth, Keyes, I wasn't a whole lot interested in goldfish right then, nor in auto renewals, nor in Mr. Dietrichson and his daughter Lola.

NEFF'S VOICE I was thinking about that dame upstairs, and the way she had looked at me...

NEFF'S VOICE ...and I wanted to see her again...

NEFF'S VOICE ...close, without that silly staircase between us.

A-26 STAIRCASE (FROM NEFF'S POINT OF VIEW)

Phyllis Dietrichson is coming downstairs. First we see her feet, with pom-pom slippers and the gold anklet on her left ankle.

CAMERA PULLS BACK SLOWLY as she descends, until we see all of her. She is wearing a pale blue summer dress.

PHYLLIS' VOICE I wasn't long, was I?
NEFF'S VOICE Not at all, Mrs. Dietrichson.

CAMERA PULLS BACK WITH HER INTO THE LIVING ROOM.

PHYLLIS I hope I've got my face on straight.
NEFF It's perfect for my money.

PHYLLIS (Crossing to the mirror over the fireplace) Won't you sit down, Mr. -- Neff is the name, isn't it?
NEFF With two f's, like in Philadelphia. If you know the story.
PHYLLIS What story?
NEFF The Philadelphia Story. What are we talking about?
PHYLLIS (She works with her lipstick) About the insurance.

PHYLLIS My husband never tells me anything.

NEFF It's on your two cars, the La Salle and the Plymouth.

He crosses to the davenport to get the policies from his briefcase. She turns away from the mirror and sits in a big chair with her legs drawn up sideways, the anklet now clearly visible.

NEFF We've been handling this insurance for three years for Mr. Dietrichson, and we'd hate to see the policies lapse.
(His eyes have caught the anklet)

NEFF That's a honey of an anklet you're wearing, Mrs. Dietrichson.

Phyllis smiles faintly and covers the anklet with her dress.

NEFF As I said, Mrs Dietrichson, we'd hate to see the policies lapse. Of course, we give him thirty days. That's all we're allowed to give.
PHYLLIS I guess he's been too busy down at Long Beach in the oil fields.
NEFF Could I catch him home some evening for a few minutes?
PHYLLIS I suppose so. But he's never home much before eight.
NEFF That would be fine with me.
PHYLLIS You're not connected with the Automobile Club, are you?
NEFF No, the All-Risk, Mrs. Dietrichson. Why?
PHYLLIS Somebody from the Automobile Club has been trying to get him. Do they have a better rate?
NEFF If your husband's a member.

PHYLLIS No, he isn't.

Phyllis rises and walks up and down, paying less and less attention.

NEFF Well, he'd have to join the club and pay a membership fee to start with.

NEFF The Automobile Club is fine. I never knock the other fellow's merchandise, Mrs. Dietrichson, but I can do just as well for you. I have a very attractive policy here. It wouldn't take me two minutes to put it in front of your husband.

He consults the policies he is holding.

NEFF For instance, we're writing a new kind of fifty percent retention feature in the collision coverage.

Phyllis stops in her walk.

PHYLLIS You're a smart insurance man, aren't you, Mr. Neff?

NEFF I've had eleven years of it.
PHYLLIS Doing pretty well?
NEFF ...It's a living.

PHYLLIS You handle just automobile insurance, or all kinds?

She sits down again, in the same position as before

NEFF All kinds. Fire, earthquake, theft, public liability, group insurance, industrial stuff and so on right down the line.
PHYLLIS Accident insurance?

NEFF Accident insurance? Sure, Mrs. Dietrichson.

His eyes fall on the anklet again.

NEFF I wish you'd tell me what's engraved on that anklet.

PHYLLIS Just my name.
NEFF As for instance?

PHYLLIS Phyllis.

NEFF Phyllis. I think I like that.
PHYLLIS But you're not sure?
NEFF I'd have to drive it around the block a couple of times.

PHYLLIS (Standing up again) Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then.
NEFF Who?
PHYLLIS My husband.

PHYLLIS You were anxious to talk to him weren't you?
NEFF Well, I was, but I'm sorta of getting over the idea a little, if you know what I mean.

PHYLLIS There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.
NEFF How fast was I going, officer?
PHYLLIS I'd say about ninety.

NEFF Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
PHYLLIS Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
NEFF Suppose it doesn't take.

PHYLLIS Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
NEFF Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.
PHYLLIS Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.

NEFF That tears it.

Neff takes his hat and briefcase.

NEFF Eight-thirty tomorrow evening then, Mrs. Dietrichson.
PHYLLIS That's what I suggested.

They both move toward the archway.

A-27 HALLWAY - PHYLLIS AND NEFF GOING TOWARDS THE ENTRANCE DOOR

NEFF Will you be here, too?
PHYLLIS I guess so. I usually am.
NEFF Same chair, same perfume, same anklet?

PHYLLIS (Opening the door) I wonder if I know what you mean.

NEFF I wonder if you wonder.

He walks out.


Double Indemnity

Words by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler

Pictures by John F. Seitz and Billy Wilder

Double Indemnity is available on DVD from Universal Studios Home Video.

Raymond Chandler sticks out like a tarantula

on an angel-food cake in Double Indemnity