The Classic Film Collective: Double Indemnity by James M. Cain

 This was originally published in the former The Classic Film Collective Patreon.

Double Indemnity

by James M. Cain

Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

Paperback ISBN: 9780679723226

128 pages

Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Powell's

When asked to define film noir, one movie often comes to mind as the most representative of the cinematic movement: Double Indemnity (1944). Not only is it the most noirish of the noirs, it’s one of the best films ever made. With Billy Wilder’s direction, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson portrayals and key filmmaking elements such as expert pacing, lighting and set design, the whole movie comes together as a veritable work of art. Double Indemnity also paved way for other noirs, especially The Postman Always Rings Twice. Both novels were written by James M. Cain and the battle to get Double Indemnity past production code guidelines allowed for negotiations to finally bring Postman to the big screen.

I read The Postman Always Rings Twice a few years ago to compare it to the movie and I was really intrigued by how lustful, violent and even racist the original story was in comparison to the movie adaptation. Then I wondered: how would Double Indemnity hold up with a novel-to-movie comparison?

Double Indemnity by James M. Cain is a novella that was originally serialized by Liberty Magazine in 1936 before it was published in book form as one of three stories in a collection. The book packs a punch in just 115 pages. Like the film, the story is told from insurance salesman Walter’s (Fred MacMurray) perspective. Through his first person narration, Walter relates the details of how he and his lover Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck) plotted to murder her husband and commit insurance fraud for a big payout. Instead of relating his story to a dictaphone like MacMurray does in the film, Walter is writing a long letter to his work colleague Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) while traveling on a vessel.

I was quite captivated by Cain’s novel. It’s short enough that you can lose yourself in it and read the whole book in one sitting. The novel portrays Phyllis as a much more sinister character, Keyes becomes important only at the very end of the book, and Lola (Jean Heather), Phyllis’s stepdaughter, and her boyfriend Nino (Byron Barr) have a more distinct present in the story. The novel is heavy on the dialogue—Walter’s dictation and his conversations with the other characters. But there are also some interesting descriptions of the location settings including Glendale and Hollywood, California.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

“Under those blue pajamas was a shape to set a man nuts, and how good I was going to sound when I started explaining the high ethics of the insurance business I didn’t exactly know.” — Walter 

“I was standing right on the deep end, looking over the edge, and I kept telling myself to get out of there, and get quick, and never come back. But that was what I kept telling myself. What I was doing was peeping over that edge, and all the time I was trying to pul away from it, there was something in me that kept edging a little closer, trying to get a better look.” — Walter 

“Maybe I’m crazy. But there’s something in me that loves Death. I think of myself as Death, sometimes. In a scarlet shroud, floating through the night. I’m so beautiful, then. And sad. And hungry to make the whole world happy, by taking them out where I am, into the night, away from all trouble, all unhappiness…” — Phyllis 

“Walter—I’m so excited. It does terrible things to me.” — Phyllis 

I don’t often like somebody. At my trade, you can’t afford to. The whole human race looks—a bit crooked.” — Keyes

While James M. Cain was originally hired to adapt his own novel, ultimately Billy Wilder and fellow noir novelist Raymond Chandler were responsible for the final screenplay. Here are some of the changes they made:

!SPOILERS AHEAD!

• Character names get a makeover. Walter Neff is changed to Walter Huff, Phyllis Nirdlinger (yes you read that correctly) was changed to Phyllis Dietrichson and Nino Sachetti was changed to Nino Zachetti. Phyllis’ maid Belle becomes Nettie and the original Nettie, Norton’s secretary, isn’t given a name at all.

• Phyllis is described as having a lust for death. She’s driven by that more so than by freedom and money. Part of her backstory includes being a killer nurse. Like in the film, she’s responsible for killing Lola’s mother. In the novel she’s also responsible for killing three children which led to a malpractice suit that ultimately affected the Sachetti/Zachetti family.

• Asian characters in the novel, Walter’s Filipino “houseboy” and Walter and Phyllis’s mutual acquaintance Mr. Ling are not included in the film adaptation.

• The Keyes character is brought to the forefront giving Edward G. Robinson more screen time. In the film, Keyes is the moral center of the story. In the novel, Keyes orchestrates a getaway plan for Walter. That would not fly during the Hays Code era when all murderers depicted on screen had to pay for their crime.

• Phyllis shoots Walter but Lola and Nino are blamed for it. Walter is fixated on clearing Lola’s name. They had both stopped seeing Phyllis and Nino respectively and started dating each other.

• The final scenes in Double Indemnity are some of the most memorable. It depicts Walter confessing to Keyes at their place of work with Walter making a weak attempt at a getaway. IN the novel, Walter and Phyllis are on a boat grappling with the future that lays ahead of them. They make a suicide pact and the suggestion is that they jumped off the vessel and were eaten by sharks. Phyllis goes as far to dress up for her “bridegroom” Death, whom she describes as her one true love. She puts chalk on her face to look paler, creates dark circles around her eyes, puts on red lipstick and drapes herself in red silk for this upcoming “wedding.” Eek!

!END OF SPOILERS!

Ultimately, James M. Cain was happy with the changes Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler made to his story. He even commended them for some scenes he wish he had thought of in the first place. This is one of those rare cases in which the movie improves on the book.

Have you read the novel? If so, what did you think of it?

The Classic Film Collective: Topper by Thorne Smith

This was originally published in the former The Classic Film Collective Patreon.

 

Constance Bennett (Marion Kerby)
Cary Grant (George Kerby)
Roland Young (Cosmo Topper)
Billie Burke (Mrs. Topper)

One of the most beloved screwball comedies to come out of the thirties, Topper (1937), directed by Norman Z. McLeod, stars Constance Bennett and Cary Grant as a pair of free spirited ghosts who show middle-aged bank executive Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) what it really means to live. During their lifetime, Marion and George Kerby (Bennett and Grant) happily spent their days enjoying lavish parties, plenty of booze and wild road trips through the countryside. On one tragic day, George’s erratic driving causes them to have a fatal head-on collision with a tree. They shed their bodies but their spirits remain on earth in various degrees of visibility. As ghosts in limbo, their mission to ascend to heaven is to take Topper under their wing. They draw him away from his humdrum life with his uptight wife Mrs. Topper (Billie Burke) and the madcap adventures begin.

Topper (1937) was an adaptation of Thorne Smith’s 1926 novel of the same name. Born out of the prohibition era and the Jazz age, Topper is chock-full of fun alcohol-fueled escapades. Smith mostly wrote comedies and Topper and its sequel Topper Takes a Trip were his best known works. Topper pokes fun at the lifestyles of the upper and upper-middle class families while also driving home the simple but potent message that life is worth living.

At the heart of the novel is the opposition between hedonism and sensibility. Cosmo and Mrs. Topper live their lives as as though it were a “summer of Sundays”. Topper himself is caught in between. He wants to live life but the people who surround him view passion and enthusiasm as personal failures. As though there was a thing as too much enjoyment. Marion and George Kirby are described as “the fastest young couple in town” whose journey culminated in “a gay life and a quick death.” I love this line in particular which compares the Kerbys to the social set that the Toppers belonged to:

“The Kerbys had not belonged to his set, the solid substantial, commuting set, but had gathered round them, from all parts of the country, a group of irresponsible spirits, who would suddenly appear in a swarm of motors, riot around the town and countryside for a few days, and then as suddenly disappear in a cloud of dust and a chorus of brazen horns.”

Throughout the book, the dichotomy between living and just existing becomes the story’s strongest theme. Just existing is considered a form of death and characters who are truly living can either be physically dead or alive. Topper’s journey is referred to as an “incredible vacation,” a way for him to break out of his shell and tap into his inner joy. The Mrs. Topper character in particular serves as a warning that being “half alive” is no real way to live. Here are some quotes from the book that explore the theme of living vs. dying:

“For the first time Topper’s established routine of living gave place to a disorderly desire to live.”

“Mr. Topper came to regard himself as a corpse, without, however, enjoying a corpse’s immunity to its surroundings.”

“Any creature, man or beast, who has the capacity and desire to enjoy life deserves that enjoyment.”

Although in the book the Kerbys don’t need to help Topper to get into heaven, they do make it a mission to help Topper come out of his shell. The Kerbys in the film are ghosts who, when fully visible, inhabit the world of the living as members of society but when invisible cause absolute chaos when invisible. In the book the Kerbys are described as “low-planed” spirits. High planed spirits don’t live on earth nor can they make themselves visible. Low-planed spirits can store up “ectoplasm” (???) to achieve varying degrees of “thickness”. It’s all a very bizarre way to describe ghosts but in a way this works especially when it translates to a visual medium like film.

If you remember from the film, at one point George Kerby disappeared and you may have wondered: where did Cary Grant go? In the novel, George goes off on a seaside adventure leaving Marion behind to galavant with Topper. The scenes where Marion and Topper get into some riotous fun together, sans George, is a way for Topper to have a makeshift affair without committing actual adultery. Marion proclaims she’s no longer married now that she’s dead and Topper is embarrassed when hotel staff come to investigate reports of an unregistered woman in his room. A little tantalizing but never crosses the line which makes the film censorship friendly in the age of Hays Code enforcement. Having an emotional affair with Marion becomes a more important element of the book while in the film it's treated as a light flirtation.

The butler Wilkins, played by Alan Mowbray, who is constantly judging Topper and siding with the more sensible Mrs. Topper, isn’t in the book at all. Instead, Topper’s constant companion at home is his beloved cat Scollops. There are several running jokes about how the Toppers suffer from indigestion (“dyspesia”), how Mrs. Topper insists that Topper always enjoys a good leg of lamb for dinner, the predictability of which annoys Topper. The book also includes three other ghosts that aren’t in the film: the Colonel, his wife Mrs. Hart and their dog Oscar, who struggles to become fully visible and instead can only be seen in partial form.

I’m impressed by how the screenwriting team Jack Jevne, Eric Hatch and Eddie Moran transformed Thorne Smith’s story into an enjoyable 1-1/2 hour screwball comedy that allows the triumvirate of Bennett, Grant and Young shine. The novel takes a while to get to introduce the Kerbys and there are so many stories with Marion and Topper gallivanting around that the more concise approach the film takes allows the story not to lose steam as it does quite often in the novel. Unfortunately the author never lived to see the film adaptation in 1937 because he died at the age of 42 in 1934. Or perhaps, his ghost attended the premiere? We’ll never know.

Topper by Thorne Smith is a bit of a mixed bag but still quite enjoyable. I read Modern Library’s 1999 paperback edition.

Noir Bar by Eddie Muller

Noir Bar
Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir
by Eddie Muller
TCM and Running Press
Hardcover ISBN: 9780762480623
May 2023

248 pages

Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Larry Edmund's — Powell's 

“Noir Bar offers a booze-based excursion through America’s most popular film genre, pairing easy-to-master recipes with the kind of behind-the-scenes anecdotes I like to include in my film intros and books.... This book is designed to be a drinking companion for anyone taking a deep dive into the glamorous and gritty world of noir.” — Eddie Muller

Cocktails and film noir make for a perfect pair in TCM host Eddie Muller's latest book: Noir Bar. Presented in alphabetical order, Noir Bar features 50 different films, each with a cocktail recipe to accompany it. Muller's curation of titles is as exciting as the cocktails he picks for each. The recipes were carefully selected by Muller—who is both the Czar of Noir and an experienced mixologist—to tie into the movie. The connection between noir and cocktail can be as simple as a reference to the title, protagonist or one of the actors. Some are thematic based on elements of the story. And there are numerous Eddie Muller originals. As someone who loves both film noir and cocktails, I had fun reading how Muller ties the cocktail to the movie and his reasoning behind each choice.

Here are some of my favorite film noir and cocktail pairings:

• The Blue Gardenia (1953) — The Pearl Diver — This is a hat tip to the Tiki cocktail that Raymond Burr's character buys for Anne Baxter in order to get her intoxicated. Not many cocktails in the book have a direct connection
• D.O.A. (1949) — The Last Word — The name is a reference to the protagonist's plight to get the "last word" on his murder. The cocktail recipe ingredients put together look reminiscent of the luminous poison from the film.
• Hell’s Half Acre (1954) — Mai Tai — This film noir takes place in and was filmed on location in Hawaii. As someone who has enjoyed many a Mai Tai in Oahu, I appreciated Muller's tips on how to make a quality Mai Tai at home.
• Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) — Johnny & Earle — Named after Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte’s characters, this Eddie Muller original is probably the most clever cocktails in the whole book. He writes: “My mixology strategy here is obvious and symbolic—like the end of the movie. Two base spirits that rarely engage with each other are unexpectedly combined: Jamaican dark rum… and Southern Comfort… In the spirit of the story, my formula calls for fifty-fifty use of the two spirits…The bitters and the Allspice Dram smooth things out between two headstrong leads.”
• Pickup on South Street (1953) — Bloody Mary — Eddie Muller prides himself on his signature recipe and this cocktail happens to be director Samuel Fuller's drink of choice.
• Suspense (1946) — Belita — This frozen cocktail is named after the film's star Belita and is a hat tip to her career as an ice skater.

And of course I had to make the Out of the Past (1947) Paloma. In the book Muller writes, 

"this [is a] humble concoction of tequila, lime, and grapefruit soda... Mitchum, of course, would have waved off grapefruit soda in his tequila. Granted. This one's for Jane [Greer]." 

I've had Palomas in the past but have never made one at home. I'm not terribly experienced when it comes to crafting cocktails. I appreciated Noir Bar's front matter which includes Muller's introductions on spirits, garnishes and tools to have on hand as well as a guide to basic cocktail making techniques. And for those of you who love to look up old cocktail recipes and are often dismayed by how many of them contain egg whites, fear not because this book only has one such recipe!

The mix of titles include some of the most famous entries into the film noir canon as well as some obscure titles I've never heard of—and everything in between. Two of my favorites, Double Indemnity (1944) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), were missing but that didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book.

Each film noir has a 4-6 page entry complete with a brief foray into the film's history, an explanation of the cocktail pairing, a recipe and some images from the film. Some of the cocktails are presented with a stylized photograph that has a sort of hazy 1980s neo-noir vibe to it that gave me a twinge of nostalgia. The book is a nice compact size but because of its binding and dark matte gloss pages, I do suggest placing it in a cookbook holder for reading and reference purposes if you can. I would not recommend this for someone who abstains from alcohol because the book leans heavily on the cocktail related content. They are not sections you can just skip.

Interior spread courtesy of Running Press. Champagne Cocktail to accompany Sunset Blvd. (1951).

Noir Bar is the perfect companion for film noir enthusiasts who enjoy a well-made cocktail.

Don't forget to drink responsibly!

Thank you to Running Press for sending me a copy of Noir Bar to review!