Film Noir Interviews: Billy Wilder and Samuel Fuller

The Images Journal web site features interviews with these stellar noir directors:

Billy Wilder – A really fun interview from July 1975.

SunsetBlvd. (1950)

Wilder On Double Indemnity (1944):

Well, he was just kind of a middle-class insurance guy who works an angle. If he is that tough, then there is nothing left for Stanwyck to work on. He has to be seduced and sucked in on that thing. He is the average man who suddenly becomes a murderer. That’s the dark aspect of the middle-class, how ordinary guys can come to commit murder.

Wilder’s noirs:

Double Indemnity (1944)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Ace in the Hole (1951)

Samuel Fuller – 1972 to 1976 composite of several interviews.

Pickup on South Street (1953)

Fuller on his noir movies:

When I was making these damned pictures, I never knew about film noir… To me it’s the emotion, the lies, the double-cross… that defines what kind of drama it is.

Fuller’s noirs:

Pickup on South Street (1953)
House of Bamboo (1955)
The Crimson Kimono (1959)
Underworld USA (1961)
Shock Corridor (1963)
The Naked Kiss (1964)