A textbook example of film noir: Billy Wilder's 'Double Indemnity'

Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity 

Here is a short video I posted to Youtube giving my perspectives on Billy Wilder's great classic film 'Double Indemnity' starring Edward G. Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray based a script Wilder co wrote with Raymond Chandler. The film earned 7 Oscar nominations and is widely viewed as the standard for film noir, even to this day!

Summary of Band Of Brothers 1: Currahee

Band Of Brothers: Currahee

Prologue

World War 2 vets recall the draft for U.S. Army paratroopers and their eagerness to sign up.

Story

Film begins June 4, 1944 with Easy Company loading gear onto C-47 transport airplanes. Troops are chomping at the bit and ready to go into battle. But at the last minute, they are told that they can’t go out because of bad weather. Everyone is dejected and the barracks are quiet. 

Two years earlier, Camp Toccoa, Georgia

Fresh recruits stand at attention as Lieutenant Sobel inspects them 1 by 1. Sobel finds everything wrong with them from specks of rust on the stock of a bayonet to a stray piece of thread. He revokes all weekend passes and orders them to run up Currahee Hill—3 miles up and 3 miles down—in 15 minutes.

Privates run 3 miles up Currahee and return downhill 3 miles in 15 minutes total. Sobel berates them on the way up. After completing the hill in PT gear, Sobel makes them run the hill again in full heavy gear. Sobel drives the recruits hard all day long.

Easy Company marches up Currahee hill with Lieutenant Winters leading the way. One of the privates asks Winters why Easy Company is the only company marching 12 miles on Friday night in full gear. Private thinks that Sobel hates them. Jokingly, Winters tells the private that Sobel only hates him.

**

Sobel orders Winters to instruct Easy Company to pour out their canteens and everyone complies except 1 private whose canteen is already empty. Sobel orders the private to repeat the 12 mile march up Currahee and orders Winters to bring him 6 soldiers to punish with latrine duty. 

Montage

• Captain Sobel oversees a paratroop training drill.
• Captain Sobel singles out privates to run Currahee.

Colonel Sink promotes Sobel to Captain and pins emblems on his shirt. Sink is also promoting Lieutenant Winters to 1st Lieutenant but he wants Sobel to pin the emblems on Winter’s shirt. 

**

Sobel does a surprise search of Lieutenant Louis’s belongings (Louis is Winter’s assistant) and finds contraband. Sobel cancels all weekend passes. Later, he pins the 1st Lieutenant CO emblems on Winter’s shirt; Winters will serve as Sobel’s executive officer. Sobel assigns Winters to the mess hall for 2 weeks as a test. He tells Winters to serve spaghetti tomorrow. 

The next day, Sobel interrupts Easy Company’s chow and orders them to run up Currahee Hill. Some of the privates lose their spaghetti on the way up and this seems to please Sobel who keeps pace. Defiantly, the company belt out their running cadence which pisses Sobel off. 

**

Easy Company is taken up 12 at a time in C-47 airplanes to complete 5 exits (jumps) that will certify them as paratroopers. In one of the planes, Sobel looks scared and hesitates before making his jump. 

Easy Company celebrates in a bar after successfully completing paratroop training and earning their wings. Colonel Sink toasts them and leads the chant of their motto: “Currahee!” 

**

In a battlefield simulation, Sobel’s bad leadership skills are exposed when he leads his squad into an ambush by leaving a safe position. 

**

Winters introduces 2nd Lieutenant Louis Nixon to 2nd Lieutenant Harry Welsh from the 82nd Airborne. Word has gotten around about Sobel’s bad performance in the last training exercise. He’s jumpy in the field. As they are talking, Sobel appears out of nowhere and their faces tell him that they were talking about him. Throughout the camp, troops whisper amongst themselves concerning Sobel and distrust his leadership. 

**

Winters, Welsh, and Louis on train. Louis produces a flask of whiskey and takes a swig. 

9/6/43

Troops load their supplies on the ship that will take them to Europe (Roosevelt’s the President). 

9/18/43, Aldbourne England

Troops do battlefield simulations to prepare for the German army. Easy is broken up into squads and each is assigned a captain. Again, Sobel leads his squad to the wrong position and has a great deal of trouble reading his map. Another squad hidden from view, plays a trick on him by getting private Russ to impersonate the major. Russ orders Sobel to cut through the goddamn fence blocking his squad. Meanwhile, Winters checks his wristwatch; Captain Sobel is late. Winters improvises and orders 1st and 2nd platoon to cut off both sides of a T-shaped road. While they are doing this, he will lead 1st squad up the middle of the road to trap their enemy. They execute and Winters pulls off the mission. 

Sobel is reprimanded later for cutting through the fence and is told that the major who told him to do so is in London! Sobel realizes that he is losing Easy Company to Lieutenant Winters. 

Sobel threatens Winters with a court-martial for disobeying his direct order on an administrative assignment despite the fact that Winters was quartered with a family that had no phone and never received the order. Nevertheless, Sobel gives Winters 2 options: to forfeit his 48 hour leave for 60 days or request a trial by court-martial. Nobel hopes Winters will opt for the 1st option but Winters requests the court-martial.  

When Winters is transferred to the mess battalion, the NCOs of Easy Company are not happy about it because they trust Winters on the battlefield. They all agree to turn in their resignations to Colonel Sink. The Colonel is furious. With D-Day fast approaching, the Army needs all of its NCOs and if not for this fact, he would line them all up in front of the firing squad. He denies their requests and tells them to get out of his sight immediately.  

**

Colonel Sink has Sobel in his office and tells him about the NCOs that tried to turn in their resignations earlier. Sobel believes that the majority of the NCOs respect him. Sink compliments Sobel on the great job he’s done with Easy Company and reassigns him to a parachute training school in Chilton Foliat to train chaplains and doctors. Sobel objects to this but Sink’s decision is final.

Sobel is driven off the base in a jeep. He glares at Winters on his way out; Winters salutes him. 

5/31/1944, Upottery, England

US soldiers and British soldiers meet. Winters and the new captain of Easy Company, Lieutenant Meehan, study a large map of Normandy. Later, Louis goes over the Allies’ deployment strategy with the COs and later the COs take this strategy to the troops, giving each a sand table, a map, and reconnaissance photos to memorize until they can draw the area by memory. They will arrive at the beach 5 hours ahead of 4th Infantry in an area called St. Marie Du Mont to take out the German garrison between them and their objective. 

**

Troops prepare for the flight to Omaha Beach, packing up their gear and signing their life insurance policies. NCO Guarnere’s brother, who’s also a soldier, got killed in Italy. Guarnere doesn’t know his brother is dead yet and 2 of his fellow troopers debate on whether to tell him. 

Easy Company is told that the invasion is postponed for 24 hours due to bad weather. 

In the makeshift movie theater, Guarnere discovers that he has on another trooper’s jacket. He finds a letter in one of the pockets saying that his brother died in Paris. Winters writes in his journal. 

June 5, 1944, Upottery Airfield

Troops load their gear into the planes that will take them to Omaha Beach. Troops sit on the ground in neat rows and columns waiting for Winters to pull them to their feet. They board the planes and the planes take off and cover the sky over the ocean (Gen. Dwight Eisenhower is the Supreme Allied Commander)