Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1944) “Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?’

Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1944)

“Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?’


Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray on the set of Double Indemnity (1944) “I was lucky enough to make four pictures with Barbara. In the first I turned her in, in the second I killed her, in the third I left her for another woman, and in the fourth I pushed her over a waterfall. The one thing all these pictures had in common was that I fell in love with Barbara Stanwyck - and I did, too.” -Fred MacMurray

Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray on the set of Double Indemnity (1944)

“I was lucky enough to make four pictures with Barbara. In the first I turned her in, in the second I killed her, in the third I left her for another woman, and in the fourth I pushed her over a waterfall. The one thing all these pictures had in common was that I fell in love with Barbara Stanwyck - and I did, too.”

-Fred MacMurray

Raymond Chandler (co-screenwriter on Double Indemnity, The Blue Dahlia, Strangers on a Train, etc.) (via latimes.com) On Hollywood: “Like every writer or almost every writer, who goes to Hollywood, I was convinced in the beginning that there must be some discoverable method of working in pictures which would not be completely stultifying to whatever creative talent one might happen to possess. But like others before me I discovered that this was a dream. Too many people have too much to say about a writer’s work. It ceases to be his own. And after a while he ceases to care about it. He has brief enthusiasms, but they are destroyed before they can flower. People who can’t write tell him how to write. He meets clever and interesting people, and may even form lasting friendships, but all this is incidental to his proper business of writing. The wise screenwriter is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn’t take things too much to heart. He should have a touch of cynicism, but only a touch. The complete cynic is as useless to Hollywood as he is to himself. He should do the best he can without straining at it. He should be scrupulously honest about his work but he should not expect scrupulous honesty in return. He won’t get it. And when he has had enough, he should say goodbye with a smile, because for all he knows he may want to go back.”

Raymond Chandler (co-screenwriter on Double Indemnity, The Blue Dahlia, Strangers on a Train, etc.) (via latimes.com)

On Hollywood:

“Like every writer or almost every writer, who goes to Hollywood, I was convinced in the beginning that there must be some discoverable method of working in pictures which would not be completely stultifying to whatever creative talent one might happen to possess. But like others before me I discovered that this was a dream.

Too many people have too much to say about a writer’s work. It ceases to be his own. And after a while he ceases to care about it. He has brief enthusiasms, but they are destroyed before they can flower. People who can’t write tell him how to write. He meets clever and interesting people, and may even form lasting friendships, but all this is incidental to his proper business of writing.

The wise screenwriter is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn’t take things too much to heart. He should have a touch of cynicism, but only a touch. The complete cynic is as useless to Hollywood as he is to himself. He should do the best he can without straining at it. He should be scrupulously honest about his work but he should not expect scrupulous honesty in return. He won’t get it. And when he has had enough, he should say goodbye with a smile, because for all he knows he may want to go back.”

Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1946, dir. Billy Wilder, based on the novel by James M. Cain) I knew then what I had done. I had killed a man. I had killed a man to get a woman. I had put myself in her power, so there was one person in the world that could point a finger at me, and I would have to die. I had done all that for her, and I never wanted to see her again as long as I lived. That’s all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate. - James M. Cain, Double Indemnity

Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1946, dir. Billy Wilder, based on the novel by James M. Cain)

I knew then what I had done. I had killed a man. I had killed a man to get a woman. I had put myself in her power, so there was one person in the world that could point a finger at me, and I would have to die. I had done all that for her, and I never wanted to see her again as long as I lived.

That’s all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate.

- James M. Cain, Double Indemnity

Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1946, dir. Billy Wilder) “How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?”

Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1946, dir. Billy Wilder)

“How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?”

Miklos Rozsa - Prelude (Double Indemnity: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray on the set of Double Indemnity (1944, dir. Billy Wilder) Wartime food shortages meant that security guards were posted to protect the real cans of food in the grocery store from sticky-fingered cast & crew members. Despite this, the aggrieved store owner reported to the LA Times that some scoundrel had managed to pinch a can of peaches & four bars of laundry soap.  (via)

Barbara Stanwyck & Fred MacMurray on the set of Double Indemnity (1944, dir. Billy Wilder)

Wartime food shortages meant that security guards were posted to protect the real cans of food in the grocery store from sticky-fingered cast & crew members. Despite this, the aggrieved store owner reported to the LA Times that some scoundrel had managed to pinch a can of peaches & four bars of laundry soap. 

(via)