Double Jeopardy

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

By: Stephen Wyatt

Narrated by: Adrian Scarborough, Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart stars as Raymond Chandler and Adrian Scarborough as Billy Wilder in BBC Radio 4's entertaining glimpse inside the Hollywood film industry. In 1944 Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder came together to work on a screen adaptation of James M. Cain's novel 'Double Indemnity'. Wilder is an ambitious 36-year-old German Jewish émigré just making his name as a director, and Chandler is a reformed alcoholic with a developing reputation as a novelist but absolutely no experience of writing for movies. The play follows their famously difficult collaboration. Paramount studios put Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder together because none of the big names would touch James M. Cain's novel. With its adulterous lovers and a crime that could be copied, it was judged too controversial to adapt because of the censorious Production Code guidelines. Chandler and Wilder famously hated each other but in a space of some four months locked in an office together they created an outstanding screenplay for a ground-breaking classic film. With Patrick Stewart ('Macbeth', 'Star Trek') as Chandler and Adrian Scarborough ('Cranford', 'The King's Speech') as Billy Wilder, 'Double Jeopardy' is directed by Claire Grove. 'Double Jeopardy' was originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 4 February 2011.

Headline

A portrait of how great creative chemistry isn't always great personal chemistry.

V witty script, performed to perfection by the cast.

And an insight into the old production houses of 1950's Hollywood.

This review insists i write more words before i can submit it, whereas i'd prefer the option to be more concise....Still says i haven't written enough to submit it which is absurb. And still not enough words. If Amazon want me to write a book then they can pay me. Seriously, it says it still isn't enough words! And still................

Great script, but one flawed performance

I loved the story and Patrick Stewart as Raymond Chandler, but I'm afraid I never found Adrian Scarborough convincing as Billy Wilder. He's got the Viennese accent, but he never quite captures Wilder's rhythms of speech, which he could easily have studied from numerous interviews with Wilder available on YouTube. Otherwise it's a terrific radio drama, but it could have been even better.