August Film Club #2

 Our sixth and final film of our Summer Series is another Billy Wilder film, the excellent Double Indemnity.

Double Indemnity is a 1944 American film noir directed by Billy Wilder and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. Wilder and Raymond Chandler adapted the screenplay from James M. Cain's novel of the same name, which ran as an eight-part serial in Liberty magazine in 1936. The film stars an insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), who plots with a woman (Barbara Stanwyck) to kill her husband in order to claim a life insurance payment, arousing the suspicion of claims manager Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson). The title refers to a "double indemnity" clause which doubles life insurance payouts when death occurs in a statistically rare manner.

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards. Widely regarded as a classic, Double Indemnity is often cited as having set the standard for film noir and as one of the greatest films of all time. It currently holds a 97 % fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert awarded 4/4 stars, added it to his list of the Great Movies and said this in his review, "Wilder’s “Double Indemnity” was one of the earlier films noir. The photography by John Seitz helped develop the noir style of sharp-edged shadows and shots, strange angles and lonely Edward Hopper settings. It’s the right fit for the hard urban atmosphere and dialogue created by Cain, Chandler, and the other writers Edmund Wilson called “the boys in the back room.” Few other directors have made so many films that were so taut, savvy, cynical and, in many different ways and tones, funny. “Double Indemnity” was his third film as a director. That early in his career, he was already cocky enough to begin a thriller with the lines, “I killed him for money — and for a woman. I didn’t get the money. And I didn’t get the woman.”

We will be meeting Thursday, August 27 @ 5:30 pm

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKrrAa2o9Eg

Hope to see you there!

August Film Club #1

 Happy August everyone. We're moving into our last month of our Summer Series of Film Noir and we have two more films. The first film for August is Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard.

Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American black comedy film noir directed by Billy Wilder and co-written by Wilder, Charles Brackett, and D. M. Marshman Jr. It is named after a major street that runs through Hollywood and western Los Angeles.

The film stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a former silent film star who draws him into her deranged fantasy world, where she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen. Erich von Stroheim plays Max von Mayerling, her devoted butler, and Nancy Olson, Jack Webb, Lloyd Gough, and Fred Clark appear in supporting roles. Director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper play themselves, and the film includes cameo appearances by silent film stars Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson.

The film currently holds a 98% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert awarded it 4/4 stars, added it to his list of the Great Movies and said this in his review, "Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” is the portrait of a forgotten silent star, living in exile in her grotesque mansion, screening her old films, dreaming of a comeback. But it’s also a love story, and the love keeps it from becoming simply a waxworks or a freak show. Gloria Swanson gives her greatest performance as the silent star Norma Desmond, with her grasping talons, her theatrical mannerisms, her grandiose delusions. William Holden tactfully inhabits the tricky role of the writer half her age, who allows himself to be kept by her. But the performance that holds the film together, that gives it emotional resonance and makes it real in spite of its gothic flamboyance, is by Erich von Stroheim, as Norma’s faithful butler Max. Sunset Boulevard remains the best drama ever made about the movies because it sees through the illusions, even if Norma doesn’t. When the silent star first greets the penniless writer inside her mansion, they have a classic exchange. “You used to be big,” he says. Norma responds with the great line, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

We will be meeting Thursday, August 20 @ 5:30 pm

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQWqIA1-kvA

Hope to see you there!