DOUBLE INDEMNITY Secrets from the Set

AFTER YEARS OF PLAYING NICE, FRED MACMURRAY AND BARBARA STANWYCK SHOCKED FANS WITH THIS CLASSIC FILM NOIR THRILLER

- Amanda Champagne

In a lost final scene dropped from 1944’s Double Indemnity, Edward G. Robinson’s insurance investigator stands by as his friend, played by Fred MacMurray, is put to death at San Quentin prison. “It was definitely shot,” reveals James Ursini, a co-author of a new book on the classic thriller, which also starred Barbara Stanwyck. “It sounds like a wonderful scene and a powerful one.”

Director and script co-writer Billy Wilder feared that an execution would be a step too far for a film that was already pushing the boundaries of what audiences expected. Based on a real-life murder case, Double Indemnity starred Barbara as an alluring temptress who plots with a stranger to kill her husband and collect on his life insurance policy. “The standards of the day did not favor dark visions,” explains Alain Silver, co-author with Ursini of From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir. “ The film embraced this concept of disenchantment with the world and American society.”