Daily Dialogue — February 16, 2012

Walter at the bottom of the stairs when Phyllis appears at the top, wrapped in a towel, much of her body exposed.

Walter: How do you do, Mrs. Dietrichson. I’m Walter Neff, Pacific All Risk.

Phyllis: Pacific All what?

Walter: The Pacific All Risk insurance company. It’s about some renewals on the automobiles. I’ve tried to contact your husband these last two weeks, but he’s never in his office.

Phyllis: Is there anything I can do?

Walter: The insurance ran out on the fifteenth. I hate to think of your having a smashed fender or something when you’re not… [eyeing her] …fully covered.

— Walter (Fred MacMurray), Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck), Double Indemnity (1944), screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, based on a novel by James Cain

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is meet-ups, suggested by Teddy Pasternak.

Trivia: 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.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Due to the Production Code which set strict standards in areas such as sexuality, writers had to find ways to deal with the subject subtextually. Wilder and Chandler strut their stuff in this scene.

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