Double Indemnity (1944): 20 Insane Facts You Never Knew!

Before this became one of the greatest film noirs ever made, five major stars had already turned it down. George Raft said no. Fred MacMurray thought he simply wasn't good enough for it. Nobody wanted to play a man who kills for money and lust — audiences weren't supposed to root for someone like that, and every actor in Hollywood seemed to know it. Billy Wilder made it anyway. He teamed up with Raymond Chandler, a writer who was, at the time, a recovering alcoholic barely holding himself together. Thirteen brutal weeks of writing later, the two men had built one of the tightest scripts in film history — and destroyed their relationship doing it. Wilder later said he felt so responsible for what happened to Chandler during that process that he made an entire other film about it. Here's the part almost nobody knows. Wilder actually filmed a different ending. Shot it, tested it on a real audience, and then quietly shelved it forever. What you've seen for 80 years isn't the ending he originally intended. We go through 20 facts about how this film really got made — the actors who said no before MacMurray said yes, the platinum wig one Paramount executive hated on sight, and the real story behind the ending Wilder never let audiences see. 0:00 Intro 0:42 Fact 20: Raymond Chandler's Reluctant Start 1:16 Fact 19: George Raft Turns It Down 1:38 Fact 18: Five Stars Already Said No 2:06 Fact 17: MacMurray Thought He Wasn't Good Enough 2:28 Fact 16: Barbara Stanwyck Signs On 2:51 Fact 15: What She Was Paid At the Time 3:14 Fact 14: The Wig a Studio Exec Hated 3:38 Fact 13: Two Details Built Into Phyllis 4:12 Fact 12: Edward G. Robinson, the Bigger Star 4:38 Fact 11: Chandler's Own Silent Cameo 5:01 Fact 10: What Cain's Novel Actually Had 5:30 Fact 9: Thirteen Weeks, One Room 5:56 Fact 8: Chandler's Recovery, Tested 6:18 Fact 7: Wilder's Film About What He Did 6:43 Fact 6: Seven Oscar Nominations 7:17 Fact 5: Wilder's Fury on Oscar Night 7:38 Fact 4: One More Thing About Billy 8:00 Fact 3: What the Novel Never Had 9:14 Fact 2: The Ending Wilder Actually Filmed 9:37 Fact 1: What That Test Audience Saw #DoubleIndemnity #BillyWilder #BarbaraStanwyck #FredMacMurray #ClassicMovies #FilmFacts #OldHollywood ═══════════════════════════════════ TAGS ═══════════════════════════════════ Double Indemnity 1944, Billy Wilder, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Raymond Chandler, film noir, film facts, behind the scenes, classic Hollywood, movie trivia, film history, Academy Awards