On every level -- writing, direction, acting -- Double Indemnity (1944) is a triumph and stands as one of the greatest achievements in Billy Wilder's career. Adapted from the James M. Cain novel by director Wilder and novelist Raymond Chandler, it tells the story of an insurance salesman, played by Fred MacMurray, who is lured into a murder-for-insurance plot by Barbara Stanwyck, in an archetypal femme fatale role. From its grim story to its dark, atmospheric lighting, Double Indemnity is a definitive example of World War II-era film noir. Wilder's approach is everywhere...
On every level -- writing, direction, acting -- Double Indemnity (1944) is a triumph and stands as one of the greatest achievements in Billy Wi...
The Lost Weekend swept the 1945 Academy Awards, with nominations for Best Film Editing, Score, and Black and White Cinematography, and Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Screenplay. It also received numerous awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Globes. Based on the novel by Charles Jackson, a work that many in Hollywood had thought unfilmmable because of its relentless grimness, The Lost Weekend was one of the first films to explore the devastating effects of alcoholism. Ray Milland was cast against type as Don Birnam, a writer plagued by depression and...
The Lost Weekend swept the 1945 Academy Awards, with nominations for Best Film Editing, Score, and Black and White Cinematography, and Oscars f...
Stalag 17 (1953), the riveting drama of a German prisoner-of-war camp, was adapted from the Broadway play directed by Jose Ferrer in 1951. Billy Wilder developed the play and made the film version more interesting in every way. Edwin Blum, a veteran screenwriter and friend of Wilder's, collaborated on the screenplay but found working with Wilder an agonizing experience. Wilder's mordant humor and misanthropy percolate throughout this bitter story of egoism, class conflict, and betrayal. As in a well-constructed murder mystery, the incriminating evidence points to the wrong man....
Stalag 17 (1953), the riveting drama of a German prisoner-of-war camp, was adapted from the Broadway play directed by Jose Ferrer in 1951. Bill...
This lusty, high-spirited book was forged from conversations, conducted over the course of fourteen years, between Federico Fellini--the great master director-- and author Charolette Chandler.
This lusty, high-spirited book was forged from conversations, conducted over the course of fourteen years, between Federico Fellini--the great master ...
Always daring Hollywood censors' limits on content, Billy Wilder directed greats such as Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Ginger Rogers, Marlene Dietrich, Kirk Douglas, Audrey Hepburn, and Gary Cooper. Billy Wilder: Interviews follows the filmmaking career of one of Hollywood's most honored and successful writer-directors and spans over fifty years.
Wilder, born in 1906, fled from Nazi Germany and established himself in America. Starting with a celebrated 1944 Life magazine profile, the book traces his progress from his Oscar-winning heyday of the 1940s to the 1990s, in...
Always daring Hollywood censors' limits on content, Billy Wilder directed greats such as Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Ginger Rogers, Marlene Dietr...
