From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir

by Alain Silver, James Ursini

The behind-the-scenes story of the quintessential film noir and cult classic, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity —its true crime origins and crucial impact on film history—is told for the first time in this riveting narrative published for the film's 80th anniversary.
 
From real crime to serial to novel to movie, the history of Double Indemnity is as complex and exciting as the plot of any to hit the screen during film noir’s classic period. Born of a true crime that inspired reporter and would-be crime writer James M. Cain’s novella, Hollywood quickly bid on the rights but throughout the 1930s a strict code of censorship made certain that no studio could green-light a murder melodrama based on real events. Then World War II loosened some strictures, and director-writer Billy Wilder—before his prime as director of sparkling comedies—could hire hardboiled novelist Raymond Chandler and revamp the story enough to pass the censors.

Overcoming strong resistance, Wilder then lined up a star cast led by the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck in her unforgettable turn as the ultimate femme fetale, alongside Fred MacMurray, cast against type as her partner in crime, and Edward G. Robinson as a bloodhound claims adjuster. With these skilled actors set against a low-key look, Wilder’s final film became one of the earliest studio noirs to gain critical and commercial success (nominated for 7 Oscars!), to influence the entire noir movement, and to impact filmmakers and audiences to this day.

Authors Alain Silver and James Ursini tell the complete history of Double Indemnity in their latest and most provocative work on film From the Moment They Met It Was Murder .

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Media Tie In, History, Noir, Biography, True Crime

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 2, 2024

About the author

Alain Silver has co-written and co-edited a score of books including The Samurai Film, The Noir Style, The Vampire Film, Raymond Chandlers Los Angeles, director studies of David Lean and Robert Aldrich, and four Film Noir Readers. His articles have appeared in numerous film journals, newspapers, and online magazines. He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA and is a member of the Writers Guild of America west and the Directors Guild of America.

Reviews

[Ryan Silberstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second most important part of being a cinephile is learning more about the movies you love (the most important part is watching movies, duh). From bonus features on physical or digital releases to documentaries to contemporary talk show interviews and books, there are so many ways to dig into movies. Especially when it comes to certified classics like Double Indemnity. That’s what From the Moment They Met It Was Murder by Alain Silver and James Ursini sets out to do. These co-authors have written over twenty books together previously, mostly centered on film noir, making Double Indemnity a fitting choice for these two collaborators.

The book’s first four chapters outline essential building blocks of Double Indemnity. Silver and Ursini 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 that inspired James Cain’s novella from which the film was adapted. The second chapter focuses on Cain, while the third and fourth chapters profile Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, respectively. 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.

There’s no doubt that Silver and Ursini are bonafide experts, but one thing that hampers their narrative for Double Indemnity is the lack of sources or documented information, especially on the material related to the making of the film. While the authors are transparent about this, they will often include an entire paragraph of speculation about a person’s motivation or reaction to an event before acknowledging this information is unknown. Although likely intended to spark the imagination of the readers (and many classic film fans do seem to enjoy this kind of armchair narrative crafting), the mix of facts and commentary falls into this pattern so often that it feels detrimental to the book as a whole.

In contrast, the level of detail around script changes, performance choices, and financial matters is impressive. While some readers may gloss over some of the minutiae, this does make From the Moment They Met It Was Murder a good reference book for anyone needing to write further about Double Indemnity without doing that level of research. But alongside the speculation on so many other points, it is sometimes difficult to parse what the most important pieces of information are.

From the Moment They Met It Was Murder is not a bad book by any means. The prose is engaging, the details informative, and crafting the factors around the production of this classic movie into a narrative is impressive. It is also surprising to see this much theory-based analysis in a work aimed at general classic film fans, which also does elevate this from more pop writing to having a bit of a scholarly bent. While it can feel a bit scattershot, it is easy to skip or skim a section or chapter that is not holding your interest. Ideal for those who really want to dig into this landmark film, From the Moment They Met It Was Murder provides many avenues to do so.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of us who enjoy the genre of Film Noir and have seen this classic film, this book is a fun and interesting look at its origins and its mark on subsequent other films that sought to imitate it. I often think it amusing that while "classics" are being created the writers, directors and stars have no idea of the impact that is to come from them.

Viewing "Double Indemnity" today from a much more mature and technological standpoint, it seems somewhat primitive, but that does not lessen the impact that it has for several generations and there is no doubt that this movie will be viewed into the future.

This book allows an in depth look into how it got made and the people who worked hard to bring it to us.

[Travis Leamons · Rating 4 out of 5]

If one were to construct a Venn Diagram about the classic period of film noir, DOUBLE INDEMNITY would surely occupy the center. Billy Wilder's adaptation of James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel was more lyrically sound than the book, and proved that while noir was most often regulated to B-level productions, a few could muster A-level prestige with the right group of above-the-line and below-the-line talent.

Alan Silver and James Ursini tag team to give noir fans the quintessential overview about DOUBLE INDEMNITY. They look at its origins with the famous Snyder-Gray murder trial and how its coverage would serve as inspiration for Cain's novel and other works.

Still, there is so much "insider baseball" about the production, including comparisons of test dialogue to that of the shooting script, that it all may be too much for classic film novices. But not me. Even some of the more laborious parts have insightful crumbs and factoids.

While DOUBLE INDEMNITY may not be my favorite noir - if I'm being realistic it might be outside my top five - it has all the ingredients that illustrate a movement that wasn't classified as such until French critics started picking up on the shift from movies about cops, robbers, and gangsters, to making crime stories with an edge.

FROM THE MOMENT THEY MET IT WAS MURDER isn't just a great tag line to a great noir, it is a damn good study about noir from a Paramount production with three stars playing against type (Stanwyck, MacMurray, and Robinson) to create a classic.

[Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this. I recently read two excellent books about the making of films (“Shooting Midnight Cowboy” and “Cocktails with George and Martha”, about Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and this looked promising. However I found it to be slow and at times very annoying — the odd “he did not, could not,…” phrase used as many as three times per page. The authors have written several well received books about Film Noir and I get the feeling this was cribbed from those. Meh.

[Paul Bruene · Rating 2 out of 5]

At least in audiobook form this doesn’t really work; descriptions of minute script draft changes get very dull very quickly.

Also please for the love of god stop saying “what he did not, could not know.”

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audiobook) A solid, if not spectacular, read about the movie Double Indemnity and its impact on the Film Noir genre. The work follows the usual backstory/behind-the-scene actions of the making and release of the movie, along with its impact. Most of the writing is short and to the point, which is a good thing. Yet, you could argue the Double Indemnity, as strong a movie as it was, was not the real starting point for film noir. It feels like the author just added this as a starting point, but even in the work, other Hollywood films could or should get the nod. Even the Maltese Falcon is regarded by the author as a starting point, such somewhat undercuts his argument. Certainly a film buff should watch the movie, but I don’t know if this compendium is a must-read to go with it. Not a bad read, but not a great/memorable one either.

[Doctor Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book for readers with a serious interest in film noir and in Double Indemnity in particular. It’s a history and commentary, not so much on the content and merits of the film as on its birth, maturation, and legacy in the history of film noir.

The first several chapters almost mimic the assembly of the Magnificent Seven (or the Seven Samurai, if you want to be more filmophile about it) as novelist James M. Cain, Director Billy Wilder, Producer Joseph Sistrom, and screenwriter Raymond Chandler find their ways to the project. Cain of course had already written the novel, but he was unavailable for the movie adaptation due to contractual obligations elsewhere. Wilder meanwhile had made his way from pre-Nazi Europe to America, served his apprenticeships both in Germany and Hollywood, and became the ultimate father of the movie. He wanted his own trusty screenwriter, Charles Brackett, to write the script but Brackett was not a fan of the project, and he especially wasn’t a fan of Raymond Chandler who stepped in for him.

Much of the story is actual nuts and bolts — who got paid what, how they agreed and with what enthusiasm they embraced the project, and so on. It’s of course interesting to hear the stories of how the lead actors, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Edward G. Robinson, joined the project. Robinson was actually the most established star, but he was burdened by HUAC investigation and a history of association with and sympathy for left-leaning politics. MacMurray still strikes us as an odd choice, especially given what we know of his later career, but his performance is iconic. Stanwyck was an accomplished actress, with strong performances of similar flavors to her role in Double Indemnity, and of course, from this point on, she acquired a defining presence in the noir movement.

The Hays Code was alive and authoritative in the days in which Double Indemnity was developed and released (release date July 6, 1944). And the Code’s chief enforcer Joseph Breen’s personal presence hovered over the movie. In fact, previous aspirations by other producers, directors, and writers to adapt Cain’s novel foundered as non-starters, given the novel’s content (the criminality of its “protagonists” and the depravity of their actions) as juxtaposed against the Code.

In the end, Breen gave a somewhat surprisingly lenient approval. One scene that was not included in the finished product — the execution of Walter Neff (MacMurray) in the gas chamber — played a peculiar role in the movie’s development and in Breen’s approval. The book’s authors raise alternative interpretations, that maybe Wilder planned the scene to accentuate the moral that crime doesn’t pay, that maybe he planned it as something so brutal that he could offer it as a sacrifice to Breen’s censoring knife, or that he simply decided that the scene was unnecessary and actually provided an anticlimax to the final scene where Neff delivers his confession to Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson). The scene was unusually expensive to shoot, was shot, but was left behind (and even now is still missing from archives).

One thing I wanted more of from the book is the meta view, pulling back from the movie itself to the social history of film noir and how Double Indemnity influences that history both in itself and in the movement that it spurred. Although there were numerous movies now categorized as film noir before Double Indemnity, this was the spark that lit up the movement for the next ten years. And it is still, for many, the best and most paradigmatic instance of film noir.

That said, I strongly recommend the short but informative appendix on “Proto-Noir” that delves a bit into the history of film techniques and other factors that lead up to Double Indemnity’s production. And, of course there are many studies of the social and film-centric history of film noir, including the classic by Raymond Borde, A Panorama of American Film Noir. I also appreciated Silver’s and Ursini’s specific accounts of the reception of Double Indemnity at the time of its release. They make a good case that, although it won few awards and certainly was not a high-grossing movie, it was revolutionary in content, style, and moral stance.

While I’m at it, I’ll recommend some other sources. There isn’t a single book to satisfy all my own curiosity about Double Indemnity, much less film noir as a whole. For the backstory, the real-life murder case that inspired Cain’s novel, read Judd Gray’s memoir, Doomed Ship. Gray is the real-life Walter Neff, the murderer in the story who was executed for the crime (less than an hour after completing Doomed Ship). For a fictionalized version that sticks closer to the facts than Cain’s novel, read Ron Hansen’s book, A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion. And, in addition to the Raymond Borde book, check out Eddie Muller’s survey and history of film noir, Dark City. And of course, there’s James M. Cain’s original novel.

[Don Fisk · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is quite a lot of what you might call "Sight and Sound" (remember that?) sophistry eg:

What is seldom discussed is Keyes' own alienation from middle-class values and normal relationships. Cut from the movie is his taunting of Gorlopis about different recipes, for dinner and for insurance claims: "Let's say you come up here to tell me how to make meat loaf. That's all. If you came up here to make an insurance claim, i'd have to turn you over to the law. They'd put you in jail. No wife-no kids...and no meat loaf, Gorlopis!" Keyes is dyspeptic about life: The cause, as always, is his "little man." He came close to marriage once to an unnamed fiancee; but it is Neff who decides "she was a tramp from a long line of tramps." Keyes may think that Neff's current "Margie" drinks out of the bottle; but Phyllis took his bourbon in a glass. Keyes does respect the social order in an almost fetishistic manner. There are subtle threats everywhere, the noir underworld that permeates the films in the movement. Does the fetish extend to matches, or is it true that "they always explode in my pockets"? What are the odds?

Putting castration anxieties aside, it may be that when writers venture into such territory, among the figures in the carpet (or the academic big heads looming like the moai of Rapa Nui behind any essay where the plot becomes diegesis) are the likes of semiotician Christian Metz and psychologist Jacques Lacan. These folks have a slightly more convoluted view of how movies work. Except, of course, that the first person storytellers in both novel and film are not Jamesian characters fixated on finding out secret meanings.

which is a very nice observation, once you have found the meanings of unfamiliar references, but for those, like me, unfamiliar with the jargon, requires a bit of use of claude.ai to sort out.

This book is written assuming the reader is fairly well familiar with movie making and with the discussions that ensue from observations of how narrative is advanced by screen arrangements, lighting, how story elements are sequenced and so on. These elements in "Double Indemnity" are ruthlessly examined. For the novice, like me, it takes a bit of getting familiar with the jargon and seemingly random(ish) commentary, but persistence pays off, and with the numerous illustrative photographs it is informative. The authors have such wide knowledge of the industry that the stream of factoids becomes a torrent which take a fair bit of internalizing (if that is even possible for the novice), but satisfying to get the gist of!

The discussion of the "seminal" real life noir (the Snyder/Gray murder of 1927), where disaffected 30yr old housewife Ruth Snyder with 42yr old husband Albert meets travelling salesman Henry Judd Gray; Ruth forms liaison with Henry, and persuades him to kill Albert; sets up the template very nicely. Chapters on the writer of the novel "Double Indemnity" (James Cain), the crime writer Raymond Chandler (who has much to do with the screenplay and production), and the "Austrian Journalist" - wunderkind - Billy Wilder (who is involved with screenplay and production, and everything else!) are almost enough!

There is a quarter of a page description of what helped noir bloom - if this is what you hoped the whole book would be about - thus:
Then World War II changed everything - even Hollywood. Studios began to produce films with anti-fascist and pro-war propaganda. Reflecting the worldwide psychic trauma, as might be expected, these films often had to be dark and violent. As these darker visions became more acceptable, even desirable, to audiences, the studios took greater risks with their range of subject matter. Many historians have noted that what became film noir took root with the war's inception and then blossomed. In this context, when "Three of a Kind" was published, there was renewed interest in the film rights to "Double Indemnity" (James Cain's novel).

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a rather too academic study of the making of what is one of the most famous of the old Noirs. I had been completely unaware that the inspiration for the movie was the real-life Snider-Gray murder trial, so I learned something right off the hop.

I found it dry in places, but always informational, and I came away with what I believe is a solid and complete account of the making of the film right from the writing of the screenplay to the film's debut. All the best trappings of a good non-fiction are here, including sufficient photos for those of us who appreciate visual stimulation.

I have to say I don't agree with the criticism of Stanwyck's blonde wig; I thought she was smokin' in that getup.

One thing that ground my gears for a while was the repetition of a variation of a certain phrase, always a variation along the lines of "what he (she) did not, could not, know...". I don't know if this was a writer's tic, and it didn't trouble me for a bit, but around page 30 I started to get annoyed and began keeping track. The phrase or variation thereof is used three times on page 33, and three more times on page 34; twice each on 53 and 54, three times on 69 and twice on 70, and twice each on pages 83 and 84. I darn near threw the book away, but got to thinking that professional writers would have to know how irritating something like that would be to the reader to read something like that so frequently and on consecutive pages, at that. I figured it must have some significance, so I watched the movie again, (no hardship there), but saw nothing that would explain the recurrence of the phrase. Maybe it actually was a writer's tic, or perhaps the intent was to make fools like me look for a deeper meaning. In any event, they stopped the nonsense after page 84 and I was able to get through it.

All things considered, a good book about a great film.

[Rob Levy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two classic film noir historians examine this seminal film for it's 80th anniversary. It begins as a slow burn at first as it examines the real life case that inspired the film and then jumps into an examination of Raymond Chandler, who penned the film, and James Cain who wrote the novel it is based on.

The path leading up to the making of the film is interesting and both writers use it as an opportunity to explain the roots of the genre as well as dive into the process of getting the film made. Then they go into casting, writing and editing. There is an end sequence filmed in a gas chamber that was never used and is apparently lost that Billy Wilder never used in his cut.

It is interesting facts and tidbits like this that get the book going. The momentum picks up as the film gets greenlit and heads towards production. There are interesting comments on the film from Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and other involved in mkaing the film.

Overall, this is a fantastic overview of the film and how it served as a launching point for a boom of film noir films. The last chapter examines film noir and its key players.

The best thing about the book is it's not too heavy handed. So, if you are not a hardcore film person you can read this, enjoy it and not get lost. It is also a great guide to the genre as well.

So, if you have a love of old film, film noir or the filmmaking process, then this is right up your alley.

[Jason M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the 1944 film noir classic Double Indemnity -- one of those movies that my parents were quoting for years before I saw the movie myself, and one I still go on quoting to this day, decades later. A book about the making of the movie with the TCM logo on the cover was something I was desperately eager to read. Sadly, the book is an uneasy mix of film criticism and an attempt at writing pulp fiction -- as Double Indemnity the movie itself was based on a crime novel by James M. Cain. The first four chapters each examine a real-life person involved in the making of the movie, and the sentence "What [the chapter subject] did not, could not, know..." appears like a thousand times. Each chapter begins with a few pulpy pages, a novelistic approach to telling the behind-the-scenes story of the movie, but then devolves into opaque film criticism and a history of the movement that later came to be known as film noir. It helps to have read the authors' previous books on film noir and to have a Master's degree-level understanding of film technique. The concluding chapters, which survey other noir movies that followed in "Double Indemnity"'s wake, were the most interesting for me, although that info is just as easily found for free online as in a book for sale.

[Gary Sassaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Any new TCM (Turner Classic Movies) book by Running Press is always a treat, but I really struggled with this one, partly because the authors—Alain Silver and James Ursini, no strangers to the world of film noir analysis and book writing—seemed to sometimes be writing a hard-boiled detective novel and other times a really off in the weeds doctorate dissertation. The book spends too much time on the real-life true crime case that probably inspired James Cain’s original novel, the Snyder-Gray murder case, which resulted in the shocking front page newspaper photo of Ruth Snyder being put to death in the electric chair. Also, these guys have this writing tic, where they say REPEATEDLY, “What he did not, could not, know …” They do this constantly, to the point of absolute annoyance. When the book is about Double Indemnity, the movie, and Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler (who collaborated on the screenplay), it’s fascinating. But at times it just seems to be all over the place and it would have been better with an editor who helped organize the structure more and said, “Hey, guys … can it with the ‘did not, could not,’ please?”

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The making of the film gets one chapter which is light on details. Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler, and James M. Cain each get a chapter. Each of these chapters start with the authors projecting thoughts and words on an unnamed man before revealing who they are talking about. I don't like speculation presented as fact. They also have Wilder wearing a baseball cap to the American Consul. It is extremely unlikely that a man in the 1930s would be wearing a baseball cap unless he was playing baseball, and he certainly wouldn't wear one to a serious meeting. The second half of the book was a slog about film noir. The chapter that pulled quotes from a bunch of sources (including the authors' own work) felt unending.
In the early chapters, the authors overuse the phrase "what he did not, could not know" which is made even more annoying since they refer to Mary Roberts Rinehart as a hack. She basically invented the "had I but known" type of mystery.

[Phil Gaines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given the sub-title about “the rise of film noir” (not like it’s these guys’ first book on the subject), I expected some of their old material might get reused. But, surprise, it’s almost all new and mostly focused on the movie. There is such abundant information about this consensus best example of a noir film ever made that you may need more than one go-round to take it all in. Many tired tales are debunked, most notably co-writer/director Wilder’s myriad versions of how things happened. Plus new myths are created: every chapter is introduced with some participant’s imagined interior monologue. A lot of “making of” movie books are either rehashes of older reviews or dry as dust analyses; but not this one. I’ve seem this flick more than 20 times and thought I knew everything about it. I didn’t, but now I just might

[Sugarpuss O'Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a HUGE Barbara Stanwyck fan. (See my profile picture and user name if you don't believe me.) Add my love of Classic movies & this book is right in my wheelhouse. However, as it is written by 2 authors, there are times when the writing becomes convoluted and disjointed, so I knocked off a star. I enjoyed learning about the crime that inspired James M Cain to write his novel. I also found the 'behind the scenes' machinations on how the DI got made enjoyable too. When all is said & done, after reading this book, you will be a certified expert in all things DOUBLE INDEMNITY. And that's not a bad thing at all.

PS: If you're interested in exploring Barbara Stanwyck's range, watch the film she made after DOUBLE INDEMNITY: CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT. Better yet, watch them back to back. She is absolutely amazing!!

[Plashricrem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to enjoy this one more than I ended up doing so, although it was a good warmup for Noirvember. The sections on how Double Indemnity came to be production wise were interesting and I did enjoy learning about the history of the case that inspired the novel. But, as mentioned in some of the other reviews, some of the literary choices were grating (what he could not know...) and I found the final part of the book on the thematic analyses of the movie to not entirely be my jam. Did end up adding a couple of unseen noirs to my letterboxed watch list as a result though. Probably a worthwhile read for those deep into film noir or who love DI, but otherwise not a mandatory read.

[Nick Byers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would not, could not give this more than three stars because an editor would not could not tell these authors that spamming 75% of the sentences with the phrase "would not, could not" does not effectively mimic the noir style of writing, at least that's what I presume they are trying to do in the introductory passages for each new person involved with the film. We're talking sometimes two sentences in a row, its crazy none of their proofreaders said, "Hey this is super annoying."

Other than that I learned a lot about the making of one of the greatest pieces of film noir ever so that's why I'm still giving this three stars.

[John Schorg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many of the books that come from TCM, this feels more like a gateway to other works on the subject at hand, the movie Double Indemnity. There's nothing inherently wrong here, but it doesn't feel like an original work. It's more of a collection of research and points of view from a bunch of sources. For something more substantive than this, check out work by Richard Schickel and even the one page review by David Thomson in his book "Have You Seen...?"

[Herb · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth analysis of one of my all time favorite movies, "Double Indemnity" and the Film Noir cycle of the 1940's & 50's. Fascinating and engrossing, but (probably) only if one is a fan of: (a) this movie, and/or (b) the Film Noir genre and/or (c) true crime stories. It held my interest throughout, even if, at times, it seemed a bit arcane and academic.

[Charles M · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tale of two books : the background on the adapted novel , its author , James Caine , screenwriters Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder , and its production under Wilder is informative , well written and gripping . Its post movie analysis of criticism , genre definitions and other movies is flatulent .

[Paul Beecher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike most of the vapid fan books from TCM, this actually has some meat on the bones. As a fan of these authors' work on the vampire genre, I got the Kindle and was amazed at the details about a movie made 80 years ago. Sure there might be a little too much info about the radio versions, the remake etc. but so what. I actually would not have minded even more about the true crime and how Hollywood biases affect their dramatizations. I've already tracked down and read more about the real Double Indemnity murder including the play Machinal and the unproduced William Styron script from 50 years ago. If you have not seen the movie recently, I highly recommend you take another look at it before you tackle this book and all its scores specific references.

[Malcolm Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Out of 264 pages of text just 75 deal with the making of the film.So the front cover is a bit misleading.
I disliked the repetitive style adopted by the authors and particularly the continued fascination with the Ruth Snyder case.
They even bother to cover the 1970s TV movie.And surprise surprise they find it to be not as good as the original.I skipped most of the last 120 pages

[. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer, I hate Double Indemnity.

With that being said, it was fascinating reading about the background of the original case, the production, and the reactions to the movie both in Hollywood and academically.

3.5

[Michele Mason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably 2.5 stars because of the subject matter, but only a 2 for the writing. Although, I’m tempted to drop my rating to 1 star solely on the bais of the endless repetition of the meaningless and really irritating phrase “what he did not, and could not know”.

[Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

To my mind this is THE film noir and the story of the making of it is fascinating.

[Jana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Double Indemnity and was really excited for this, but unfortunately all the parts that aren't specifically about the movie read more like a textbook. Just not as engaging as I was hoping for.

[A. H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too long.

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

What they would not, could not know...

This was a fascinating look at the making of film noir.

[Scott Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strictly for those with an interest in the movie or film noir in general. So, I found it interesting. This sloppy book would have benefited from the attention of a good copy editor.