Stephen Wyatt - Double Jeopardy

In 1944 the two men came together to work on a screen adaptation of James M Cain's novel Double Indemnity.

Billy Wilder is a 36 year old German Jewish émigré just making his name as a director and Raymond Chandler is a reformed alcoholic with a developing reputation as a novelist but absolutely no experience of writing for movies. The play follows their famously difficult collaboration.

Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler are legendary.

The English-educated, middle-aged , would-be intellectual versus the ambitious young German émigré. Paramount Studios put them together because none of the big names would touch James M Cain's novel. With its adulterous lovers, and a crime that could be copied, it was judged too controversial to adapt because of the censorious Production Code guidelines.

Chandler and Wilder famously hated each other but in a space of some four months locked in an office together they created an outstanding screenplay for a ground-breaking classic film.

Stephen Wyatt's entertaining glimpse inside the Hollywood film industry.

Raymond Chandler ...... Patrick Stewart
Billy Wilder ...... Adrian Scarborough

Director: Claire Grove

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2011.