Touring nationwide, until 9th May
What’s your favourite film noir? The Big Sleep (1946)? The Maltese Falcon (1941)? I’ve always had a soft spot for Double Indemnity – and now there’s a new stage version of Billy Wilder’s masterpiece.
In fact, it turns out Tom Holloway’s play isn’t based on Wilder’s 1944 film but on the original novel by thriller writer James M Cain (1892-1977), author of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) – another brilliant movie.
Cain worked as a journalist between the wars. In 1927, he was inspired by the much-covered case of an insurance salesman who conspired with the wife of a client to insure her husband for
accidental death, kill him and split the payout. That true crime planted a seed that grew into fertile fiction.
Cain wrote Double Indemnity as a magazine serial in 1936 – the title refers to a clause whereby a policy pays double if the client dies in a railway accident. Americans were excessively anxious about train travel, but insurers knew such mishaps – then as now – were actually extremely rare. His yarn wasn’t published in book form until 1943, but then it was snapped up by Wilder, and the posterity of this workaday pulp series was assured.
The play begins with our insurance salesman, Walter Huff, talking directly to the audience, taking us into his confidence, just as he does in Cain’s novella and Wilder’s film.
We’re in one of LA’s smarter suburbs, where Huff is keen to renew an insurance policy with a client called Nirdlinger. Mr Nirdlinger isn’t home,
but Mrs Nirdlinger invites him in and asks if she might take out a policy of her own to insure against accidental death...
This Double Indemnity is full of good things. The mystery is why all these good things don’t quite come together.
Tom Holloway’s streetwise script is suitably hard-boiled: ‘Sure, I loved her, all right – like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake.’ And Oscar Toeman, the director, plays it straight, avoiding the politically correct anachronisms that plague so many modern period dramas. Ti Green’s gloomy, spooky set is an expressionistic meisterwerk, reminiscent of the German movies which laid the foundations for film noir.
The supporting performances are also pretty good. Martin Marquez has big shoes to fill as Keyes (played by Edward G Robinson in the movie), the insurance investigator who rumbles Huff’s crooked scheme. Marquez plays him with more pathos, an old man who’s seen too much and is sickened by what he sees. He reminded me of Lee J Cobb in 12 Angry Men (1957). Oliver Ryan plays Mr Nirdlinger as the creepy villain of the piece – a nice twist to make the murder victim the most unsympathetic character.
So why does this stylish show seem like less than the sum of its parts? Because it’s the central love affair that makes it stand or fall, and that love affair feels stilted here. In the film, Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck are two hard and hollow grifters who deserve each other. Here, played by Ciarán Owens and Mischa Barton, they lack that savage, ruthless edge.
Owens is a natural whenever he’s talking to the audience – we feel we really know him – but when he’s interacting with the other characters, I found him too amenable. It’s a big leap from bent insurance salesman to cold-blooded killer. By starting off so nice, he gives himself too far to jump.
Conversely, Barton is too cool and distant. Born in Britain, she’s become a big star in America, but she’s done a lot more film and TV than theatre, and it shows. The screen rewards stillness; the stage rewards animation. In a movie, her portrayal might work very well. On stage, it seems remote.
Consequently, the sexual chemistry that should drive this drama is currently conspicuous by its absence. Without it, this well-intentioned play lacks fizz. The script needs an extra scene or two to explain why Huff is willing to risk it all – and surely the only reason he’d risk it all is if he’s getting the best sex of his life.
Barton certainly looks the part – a sultry femme fatale straight out of 1940s Hollywood – but she needs more to work with. With some significant rewriting this could be a hit show, but right now there’s still more work to be done.
