Off the back of delivering a hit directorial debut for Paramount Pictures, the bosses green-lit his next picture.
Five Graves to Cairo (1943)
Directed by Billy Wilder, Written by Charles Brackett &
Billy Wilder, Based on Hotel Imperial by Lajos Bíró,
Produced by B. G. DeSylva, Music by Miklós Rózsa, Cinematography John F. Seitz, Edited by Doane Harrison, Starring Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Akim Tamiroff & Erich von Stroheim.
It's World War II, and British soldier John Bramble is the lone survivor of a brutal battle in Egypt. After wandering through the desert, Bramble finds a remote hotel. There, in order to stay alive, he assumes a false identity. When the famed German general Rommel, aka the Desert Fox, arrives at the hotel, Bramble realizes he's being taken for a German spy. Can this lowly British soldier turn the tide in the war and foil Germany's plans in North Africa?
Again Wilder aced it. "Five Graves to Cairo" was a critical and financial hit.
Undoubtedly it was wartime propaganda but I find a lot of films made in the UK and America between 1939-1945 quite endearing.
In 2008, Quentin Tarantino listed Five Graves to Cairo as his 10th favourite film of all time.
It's safe to say the 37 year old Screenwriter turned director had impressed the powers at be at Paramount to such an extent they purchased the rights to a 1943 crime novel specifically for Wilder to spin it into celiolod gold. That book…
Double Indemnity (1944)
Directed by Billy Wilder, Screenplay by Billy Wilder & Raymond Chandler, Based on the novel “Double Indemnity” by James M. Cain, Produced by Joseph Sistrom, Music by Miklós Rózsa, Cinematography John Seitz, Edited by Doane Harrison,
Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, John Philliber.
Insurance salesman Walter Neff gets roped into a murderous scheme when he falls for the sensual Phyllis Dietrichson, who is intent on killing her husband and living off the fraudulent accidental death claim. Prompted by the late Mr. Dietrichson's daughter, Lola, insurance investigator Barton Keyes looks into the case, and gradually begins to uncover the sinister truth.
I must restrain myself from writing a whole blog just on this movie. But in brief, this is not only a Film Noir this film is genre-defining Film Noir.
Adapted from the novella “Double Indemnity” by James M. Cain which is based on a real-life murder from 1927. Paramount purchased the rights to the novella knowing it would need to be heavily adapted due to the novella being dubbed “unfilmable” because of the immoral and wicked characters in the story clashing with the restrictions imposed by the Motion Picture Production Code. Wider's regular writing partner Charles Brackett did write the initial treatment but he ultimately decided “it was immoral and beneath his talents and morality” and walked away from the project, leaving Wilder to find another collaborator.
Wilder wanted to team up with the original author James M. Cain unfortunately he was unavailable.
Joseph Sistrom the producer of this project was an avid reader and really liked “The Big Sleep” so he suggested the author Raymond Chandler.
Wilder later recalled his disappointment with Chandler, Billy expected to meet a former private detective type who channels his own experiences into gritty crime stories, but Wilder met a man who resembled an accountant and was at the time an alcoholic.
Raymond Chandler
The pair did not get along during their four months together writing with Chandler at one point submitting a long list of grievances to Paramount about Wilder. However, admiring Chandler's gift for writing dialogue that would translate very well to the screen Wilder persevered with Chandler.
Changing the story so the the two protagonists mortally wound each other was the way they didn’t fall foul of the Production Code, The code demanded that baddies pay, on screen, for their transgressions. Double Indemnity still broke new cinematic ground being the first time a Hollywood film explicitly explored the means, motives, and opportunity of committing a murder.
As I said I’m trying to keep this brief!
The film looks amazing Wilder had worked with cinematographer John F. Seitz on his previous film “Five Graves to Cairo” but Seitz outdid himself when photographing “Double Indemnity”.
The cast is wonderful, Barbara Stanwyck is stunning even though Wilder chose to put her in a bad blonde wig to underscore the character's "sleazy phoniness". In 1943 Stanwyck was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood and the highest-paid woman in America and was reluctant to take the role, She said,
"I love the script and I love you, but I am a little afraid after all these years of playing heroines to go into an out-and-out killer." And Mr. Wilder – and rightly so – looked at me and he said "Well, are you a mouse or an actress?" And I said, "Well, I hope I'm an actress." He said, "Then do the part". And I did and I'm very grateful to him.
As soon as Wilder realised the role of Walter Neff the insurance-selling lover who gets caught up in a murder plot should be played by someone who could not only be a cynic, but a nice guy as well he cast actor Fred MacMurray who was known for playing "happy-go-lucky good guys" in light comedies this was a stroke of genius.
It was a massive hit grossing $5m at the box office against a production budget of $980,000.
It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director “Billy Wilder”, Best Actress “Barbara Stanwyck”
Best Screenplay “Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler”, Best Cinematography – Black and White “John F. Seitz”, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture “Miklós Rózsa” and Best Sound Recording “Loren Ryder”. It won Zero!
But it is now considered not only one of the best noir films ever it is hailed as one of the best films of all time being ranked #38 on the American Film Institute’s top 100 films of all time & The Writers Guild of America ranked the film's screenplay the 26th greatest ever. It has also been added to The American Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.
I don't want to overstate this but this film is incredible. A movie like this should have been a “lightning in a bottle” type situation but what may shock you is Wilder basically turned around and immediately caught lightning in a bottle again!
The Lost Weekend (1945)
Directed by Billy Wilder, Screenplay by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder, Based on the novel The Lost Weekend by Charles R. Jackson, Produced by Charles Brackett, Music by Miklós Rózsa, Cinematography John F. Seitz, Edited by Doane Harrison, Starring Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard da Silva, Doris Dowling & Frank Faylen.
Writer Don Birnam is on the wagon. Sober for only a few days, Don is supposed to be spending the weekend with his brother, Wick, but, eager for a drink, Don convinces his girlfriend to take Wick to a show. Don, meanwhile, heads to his local bar and misses the train out of town. After recounting to the bartender how he developed a drinking problem, Don goes on a weekend-long bender that just might prove to be his last.
Wilder was drawn to the novel after working with Raymond Chandler who was an alcoholic while writing Double Indemnity and Wilder made the film, in part, to try to explain Chandler to himself. Wilder reunited with his writing partner Charles Brackett who was obviously not appalled by the subject matter this time and actually liked it enough to not only come onboard as co-writer but also as the producer. Due to the success of “Double Indemnity” Wilder kept the rest of the team together Cinematographer John F. Seitz, having Miklós Rózsa score the film and Doane Harrison edit. If it ain’t broke don't fix it!
Where his previous film had broken new ground with its portrayal of murderers and their motivations this film tackling alcoholism so head-on was unheard of in the 1940s and this film must have resonated at the time like Trainspotting did in ‘96 by showing heroin addiction in a mainstream movie. "The Lost Weekend" pioneered movies about social problems.
Paramount was under intense pressure to drop the completed project. Lobbyists for the liquor industry reportedly offered the studio $5 million for the master print of the movie so they could burn it.
Wilder cast Ray Milland in the lead role of Don Birnam who had previously starred in Wilder's 1942 film “The Major and the Minor”.
This film was a massive hit at the time grossing $11,000,000 at the box office against a production budget of $1.25 million. At the 18th Academy Awards in May 1946, The Lost Weekend received seven nominations and won four. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Ray Milland & Best Adapted Screenplay Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett.
The Lost Weekend was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The Registry said the film was "an uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism" and that it "melded an expressionistic film-noir style with documentary realism to immerse viewers in the harrowing experiences of an aspiring New York writer willing to do almost anything for a drink” The film is also included on the American Film Institute’s top 100 American films of all time.
Billy Wilder had now directed four Hollywood movies all have been well received and the last two had been big hits showing he excelled in making slightly challenging and gritty Film Noir and had assembled a team that facilitated truly stunning results.
So it seemed obvious that his next film would be…
A Technicolor movie musical starring Bing Crosby & Joan Fontaine obviously!!
It is a stinker! I have not seen it and don't think I will. I have heard it referred to as “Unwatchable” It lost money at the box office and the only thing notable about it is Edith Head the legendary costume designer worked on this and she was nominated for an Oscar but did not win.
This film was a massive misstep. But for context.
Immediately after The Lost Weekend production wrapped
The European theatre of WW2 had come to an end. As the Russian and Allied forces moved across Europe and Eastern Europe the reality of the Nazi Death Camps was discovered by the rest of the world. It will have been at this point Wilder will have discovered the details around his family's horrendous fate and how they would have suffered.
In 1945 Wilder volunteered to work with documentarian Hanuš Burger to make a documentary educational film “Death Mills” (or Die Todesmühlen)
produced by the United States Department of War.
The film was intended for German audiences to educate them about the actual atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. Wilder supervised the edit.
Wilder is credited with directing the English-language version; however,
he later said that he didn't direct anything as "there was nothing to direct".
The film is mostly assembled footage shot in the newly liberated death camps over a score of stark classical music. Images from the camps include shots of piles of skeletal corpses and naked skeletal survivors leaning on each other for support. Lastly, the film shows the piles of stolen personal belongings of the camp victims, including piles of clothes, shoes, toys, wedding rings and gold teeth destined for the vaults of the Reichsbank.
The narrator notes that people of all nationalities were found in the camps, including people of all religious or political creeds.
The film states that more than 20 million people were killed and describes many of the now-familiar aspects of the Holocaust, including the medical experiments and the gas chambers. Wilder as a Polish Jew watched all the footage and made decisions and supervised the edit to make the
22-minute film.
I can only imagine this was traumatising but it was obviously something he felt he needed to do and thank goodness people did document these atrocities so we have a record of these events proving beyond a shadow of a doubt what was perpetrated by the Nazi’s.
Footage from this documentary was used by Orson Welles in his 1946 film about hunting down a Nazi war criminal “The Stranger” during the scene where Edward G. Robinson explains to Mary about Franz Kindler's responsibility for the Holocaust. This was the first footage or depiction of The Holocaust to be shown in a mainstream movie.
So immediately after "The Lost Weekend" in 1945 he will have learned about his family's fate, he helped make a truly harrowing documentary film and his first marriage of 10 years fell apart. So the fact “The Emperor Waltz” (1948) was a damp squib was totally understandable. Straight off the back of that WIlder made and released…
A Foreign Affair (1948)
Directed by Billy Wilder, Screenplay by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Richard L. Breen & Robert Harari, Story by David Shaw, Produced by Charles Brackett, Music by Friedrich Hollaender, Cinematography by Charles Lang, Edited by Doane Harrison, Starring Marlene Dietrich, Jean Arthur & John Lund.
Idealistic Iowa congresswoman Phoebe Frost touches down in postwar Berlin on a fact-finding mission about legendary cabaret singer Erika von Schlütow, long rumoured to be the former mistress of one or more high-ranking Nazi leaders and now reportedly intimately involved with an unidentified American military officer. Frost falls for her military escort, Captain John Pringle, unaware that the handsome American is the singer's secret paramour.
This film also got a lukewarm reception from the critics and the movie-going public, At the time in 1948 the film was viewed as if Wilder and Brackett were lampooning American Congress and The US Army by making light of the regulations/bureaucracy and the gravity of the challenging situation of post-WW2 Europe. I think it was just bad timing and people found it offensive being set amongst current events and featuring scenes of bombed Berlin and was perceived to have a cynical tone.
But like with so, so much cinema it has been revisited and reassessed, Channel 4 lauded
“A Foreign Affair” is "one of Wilder's great forgotten films ... worthy of rapid rediscovery"
Its Blu-ray release On August 25, 2019, by Kino Lorber has been well received.
That’s all fine and well but back in 1948 Billy now had two underperforming movies at the box office and as much money as he had made Paramount in the past… Business is business and he needed to earn his keep.
End of part 2
