Wilder Noir Weekend
Director Billy Wilder’s noir classic set the standard for the genre when it was released in 1944, paving the way for The Lost Weekend and 1950’s brilliant black comedy noir Sunset Boulevard. Written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler from James M. Cain’s novel, it is a far cry from the director’s The Major and the Minor, released just two years before.
Barbara Stanwyck plays femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson, who lures straight-arrow insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) into killing her husband. The actors and snappy dialogue sizzle on a slow burn but the real love story here is between the insurance salesman and his boss, played by Edward G. Robinson.
“This shrewd, smoothly tawdry thriller, directed by Billy Wilder, is one of the high points of nineteen-forties films.” — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
“A powerful, ruthless and almost cruelly exciting picture in which Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck do the finest acting of their respective careers.” — Marjory Adams, The Boston Globe
directed by
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
written by
Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain
Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain
with
Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
country
United States
United States