Billy Wilder

"La morte paga doppio" uscì per la prima volta a puntate sulla rivista "Liberty" - uno dei tanti pulp magazine dell'epoca - tra il febbraio e l'aprile del 1936. Quando, poche settimane dopo, Joe Sistrom della Paramount entrò nell'ufficio di Billy Wilder ingiungendogli di leggere subito quel "thriller su una donna che uccide suo marito per riscuotere l'assicurazione", ignorava di avere innescato, oltre alla lavorazione di un grande film quale "La fiamma del peccato", un'inesauribile vena di leggende. Come quella del curioso record stabilito da Wilder stesso, che divorò il romanzo di Cain in cinquantotto minuti contro le due ore, cinquanta minuti e sette secondi indicati dalla rivista come tempo necessario alla lettura. E si potrebbe continuare a lungo, se non altro per spiegarsi il profumo di scandalo che ancora oggi avvolge questo archetipo del noir, che ci attrae allo stesso modo in cui il protagonista, pur sapendo che sarebbe più prudente "mollarla come un attizzatoio rovente", è attratto dalla sua dark lady.

Jack Lemmon stars as Walter Armbruster in Wilder's leisurely romantic comedy set on the idyllic Mediterranean. When his father dies in a car crash on the isle of Ischia, the corporate executive quickly is on a plane. Once there, he learns from Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills), a young Brit, that her mother, who was his father's mistress, was also killed. To make matter worse, bureaucratic rules prevent the release of the bodies for a few days. Not long after, both bodies are stolen from the morgue, and thieves are revealed to be an eccentric family of Italian vintners, who hold the corpses hostage until they are paid for the damage caused to their vineyard by the car crash. After reluctantly paying up, the irritable Walter returns to the hotel, where he even more reluctantly joins the free-spirited Pamela for a night of skinny-dipping. When a porter who attempts to blackmail the naked couple and is shot by his angry, very pregnant girlfriend, the hotel manager Carlucci (Clive Revill) is forced to put Walter and Pamela into the same room, while the murder investigation proceeds. Neither of them regrets his decision. A relaxed, sardonic comedy, juxtaposing the uptight American with the laid back European, it makes many of the same points about the excesses of American life as his earlier films in a far more mellow style.

Two struggling musicians witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and try to find a way out of the city before they are found and killed by the mob. The only job that will pay their way is an all girl band so the two dress up as women. In addition to hiding, each has his own problems; One falls for another band member but can't tell her his gender, and the other has a rich suitor who will not take "No," for an answer.

"Ein exemplarischer Novellist." Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Die erste Biographie über Leonhard Frank.

Berlin is the epitome of political and economic polarization. A microcosm of that polarization is the life of American C.R. MacNamara, known as Mac to his friends. He is Coca-Cola's head of West Berlin operations, although he feels he deserves to be Coca-Cola's head of European operations based in London. Mac's wife, Phyllis, wants him instead to get a steady and stable job back in head office in Atlanta. His West Berlin staff are all still used to treating him like their old master, the Fuhrer. The one exception is his secretary, Ingeborg, who is the latest in the long line of his secretary mistresses.