| Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity. [click photo for larger version] |
Q: In Double Indemnity, the make-up on Barbara Stanwyck...
Wilder: Mistake there. Big mistake.
Q: Why?
Wilder: I don't know. I wanted her blonde. Blondes have more fun, but ...
Q: She seemed almost ice cold with that.
Wilder: Yeah, I wanted to do that, to have her look like that. But you must understand one thing, it was a mistake. And I was the first one, to see the mistake after we were shooting. I talked to somebody about George Stevens' Place In The Sun. A real masterpiece, I think. But this guy said, "That's a great picture, but there's one cheap kind of symbolism that is almost not worthy of that great picture, that is, that district attorney, he limps. Justice kind of limping, you've got that cane. It was just kind of cheap and cheesy."
"Well, I agree with you. As a matter of fact, Stevens agrees with you." But you see, if you do that in a play, after the third performance you go backstage and you tell that actor, "Look, tomorrow no cane. Okay. Tomorrow lose the cane." But after the picture is half-finished, after I shot for four weeks with Stanwyck, now I know I made a mistake. I can't say, "Look tomorrow, you ain't going to be wearing the blonde wig." I'm stuck... I can't reshoot four weeks of stuff. I'm totally stuck. I've committed myself; the mistake was caught too late. Fortunately it did not hurt the picture. But it was too thick, we were not very clever about wig-making. But when people say, "My god, that wig. It looked phony," I answer "You noticed that? That was my intention. I wanted the phoniness in the girl, bad taste, phony wig." That is how I get out of it.