Double Indemnity

En Double Indemnity el actor Edward G. Robinson interpreta al especialista en seguros que sospecha de las intenciones de la esposa de la víctima. Double Indemnity se basó en el crimen que tuvo lugar en Nueva York, en el que la esposa, Ruth Snyder, intenta cobrar el seguro del marido asesinado por su cómplice. El caso tuvo resonancia en aquellos años, además, porque la mujer es fotografiada al momento de morir en la silla eléctrica (ver más abajo). Edward G. Robinson no estuvo seguro de aceptar el papel pues significaba descender un nivel, para ser actor secundario, cuando ya había protagonizado con éxito en varias películas.

En vocabulario: gritty, garrote, fluster, forthcoming

Double Indemnity is a 1944 American psychological thriller film noir directed by Billy Wilder, and co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler. The screenplay was based on James M. Cain's 1943 novella of the same name.

The film stars Fred MacMurray as an insurance salesman, Barbara Stanwyck as a provocative housewife who wishes her husband were dead, and Edward G. Robinson as a claims adjuster whose job is to find phony claims.The term "double indemnity" refers to a clause in certain life insurance policies that doubles the payout in rare cases when the death is accidental, such as falling off a train.

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck

Wilder's first choice for the role of Phyllis Dietrichson was Barbara Stanwyck. At the time, Stanwyck was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Given the nature of the role, Stanwyck was reluctant to take the part, fearing it would have an adverse effect on her career.

Many Hollywood actors including Alan Ladd, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, and Fredric March did not accept the offer to star the film. Wilder recalls approaching George Raft. Raft was illiterate, so Wilder had to tell him the plot. Raft turned the part down.

James M. Cain based his novella on a 1927 murder perpetrated by a married Queens, New York, woman and her lover whose trial he attended while working as a journalist in New York. In that crime, Ruth Snyder persuaded her boyfriend, Judd Gray, to kill her husband Albert after having him take out a big insurance policy – with a double-indemnity clause. The murderers quickly were identified, arrested and convicted.

Wilder later recalled with disappointment his first meeting with Chandler. Envisioning a former private detective who had worked his own experiences into gritty prose, he instead met a man he later described as looking like an accountant. Wilder informed Chandler that they would be working together, slowly and meticulously. By all accounts, the pair did not get along during their four months together.

Para saber

Ruth Brown Snyder was a housewife from Queens, a borough of New York City, who began an affair with Henry Judd Gray, a married corset salesman, in 1925. Ruth's distaste for her husband apparently began when he insisted on hanging a picture of his late fiancée Jessie Guischard on the wall of their first home, and named his boat after her.

Ruth Brown Snyder

According to Gray, Ruth had made at least seven attempts to kill Albert, all of which he survived. On March 20, 1927, the couple garrotted Albert and stuffed his nose full of chloroform-soaked rags, then staged his death as part of a burglary. Detectives at the scene noted that the burglar left little evidence of breaking into the house. Moreover, Ruth's behavior was inconsistent with her story of a terrorized wife's witnessing her husband being killed.

Police discovered that the property Ruth had claimed had been stolen was still in the house, but hidden. A breakthrough came when a detective found a paper with the letters "J.G." on it (it was a memento Albert had kept from former lover Guischard), and asked Ruth about it. A flustered Ruth's mind immediately turned to Gray, whose initials were also "J.G.," and she asked the detective what Gray had to do with the murder. It was the first time Gray had been mentioned, and the police instantly became suspicious. Gray was found upstate in Syracuse. He claimed he had been there all night, but it was eventually found out a friend of his had set up Gray's room at a hotel to support his alibi. Gray proved far more forthcoming than Ruth about his actions. He was caught and returned to Queens and charged along with Ruth.

Ruth and Gray turned on each other, contending the other was responsible for killing Albert; both were convicted and sentenced to death.

Ruth was imprisoned at Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, located thirty miles north of New York City. On January 12, 1928, she became the first woman to be executed at Sing Sing since Martha Place in 1899. She went to the electric chair ten minutes before Judd Gray, her former lover. Her execution was caught on film, at the moment electricity was running through her body, with the aid of a miniature plate camera strapped to the ankle of Tom Howard, a Chicago Tribune photographer working in cooperation with the Tribune-owned Daily News.

Ruth Snyder´s midexecution photo

Vocabulario

Gritty: strong and determined in dealing with an unpleasant situation.

Garrote: To strangle in order to rob.

Fluster: to make someone become agitated, nervous or confused.

Forthcoming: friendly, communicative, outgoing, etc.

Fuentes

Double Indemnity (film), From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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