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Film 913: Double Indemnity

Trivia: The character Walter Neff was originally named Walter Ness, but director/writer Billy Wilder found out that there was a man living in Beverly Hills named Walter Ness who was actually an insurance salesman. To avoid being sued for defamation of character, they changed the name. In the novel, his name is Walter Huff, and Dietrichson is Nirdlinger

The scene where Neff and Dietrichson can't get their car started after the murder was added by Wilder after his car wouldn't start at the end of a shooting day.

The blonde wig that Barbara Stanwyck is wearing throughout the movie was the idea of Billy Wilder. A month into shooting Wilder suddenly realized how bad it looked, but by then it was too late to re-shoot the earlier scenes. To rationalize this mistake, in later interviews Wilder claimed that the bad-looking wig was intentional.

In the first scene in which Walter first kisses Phyllis, we see a wedding ring on Walter's hand. Fred MacMurray was married and the ring was not noticed until post-production.

Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler did not get along well while writing this film's script, a process that was apparently filled with arguments. Wilder claimed that he flaunted his womanizing ability at the time to torment the sexually-repressed Chandler.

Silver dust was mixed with some subtle smoke effects to create the illusion of waning sunlight in Phyllis Dietrichson's house.

In the scene where Phyllis is listening at Neff's door as he talks with Keyes, Keyes exits into the hallway and Phyllis hides behind the door. The door opens into the hallway which isn't allowed by building codes even back then, but it does give Phyllis something to hide behind and increases the tension.

During production, one day Raymond Chandler failed to show up at work and was tracked down at his home, and he went through a litany of reasons why he could no longer work with director Billy Wilder. 'Mr. Wilder frequently interrupts our work to take phone calls from women... Mr. Wilder ordered me to open up the window. He did not say please... He sticks his baton in my eyes...I can't work with a man who wears a hat in the office. I feel he is about to leave momentarily.' Unless Wilder apologized, chandler threatened to resign. Wilder surprised himself by apologizing. "It was the first - and probably only - time on record in which a producer and director ate humble pie, in which the screenwriter humiliated the big shots."

Cameo: Raymond Chandler:  About 16 minutes into this movie, Chandler is sitting outside an office as Fred MacMurray walks past. Chandler glances up at MacMurray from a paperback he is reading, a great clue of his identity.