I don’t dig into my list of all-time greatest films often beyond this brief mention/hint or that, though I regularly get emails and comments asking me to chart them out. One of these days I’ll crank out the whole collective. One fixture of the top 20, however, has always been Billy Wilder’s seminal film noir effort “Double Indemnity.”
So it was with considerable surprise and enthusiasm that I stumbled across this Guardian story from Adrian Wootton that uncovers the until-now-undiscovered cameo from author Raymond Chandler in the film. Chandler, of course, co-wrote the screenplay with Wilder, which was itself based upon the novel by fellow noir legend James M. Cain.
The discovery comes 60 years after the film’s release and 50 years after Chandler’s death. I’m stunned no one has uncovered it until now. Author (and blogger) Mark Coggins is credited with the discovery (thanks to a tip from fellow author John Billheimer).
Writes Coggins:
The scene where Chandler appears comes relatively early in the move, just after Fred MacMurray, as insurance salesmen Walter Neff, leaves the office of Edward G. Robinson playing the character of claims adjuster Barton Keyes. Keyes has just told Neff that “his little man” tells him whenever a claim is crooked and Neff shines him on and then lights his (cheap) cigar with a kitchen match and walks out of the office.
As he exits the office, he goes down a corridor, and there is Chandler waiting outside reading a magazine and smoking a cigarette.
And Wootton:
Who knows whose idea this magical little appearance was? Maybe Billy and Ray, in one of their more amicable moments, thought it would be a nice joke. The reasons for the cameo are unlikely ever to be known. But, somehow, it is enough that we have this little magic moment, with Chandler secretly inscribed into the film. And how fitting that this piece of knowledge should be uncovered in the 50th year since Chandler’s death.
Intriguingly, the moment in question is a fairly classic example of a gimmick cameo, making it all the more mind-boggling that no one had caught it throughout the years. Indeed, what an unexpected treat.