At the end of the thirties, European expatriates, refugees from fascism, became renowned directors such as Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, but also lesser known names such as Douglas Sirk, Robert Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer, André de Toth. To them, crime was a source of fascination. It allowed them to probe the nature of evil-ordinary evil in ordinary American lives. Film noir revealed the dark underbelly of American urban life. Its denizens were private eyes, rogue cops, white-collar criminals, femmes fatales. As Raymond Chandler put it: "The streets were dark with something more than night." After Double Indemnity, you couldn't take anything for granted anymore. Not even suburbia. Not even the supermarkets of Southern California.
Let's not forget that comedies can be just as iconoclastic as dramas. Billy Wilder's work, first as a writer in the thirties, then as a writer-director from the forties on, is a perfect example. Over the years, Wilder's wit only grew more abrasive. Instead of sweetening his brews, he kept adding more acid. You won't find a more iconoclastic film in the Kennedy years than his One, Two, Three, a savage political farce that dared ridicule all ideologies at the eight of Cold War. James Cagney plays an American Coca-Cola executive who was enrolled his German secretary to hoodwink the Soviet commissars in East Berlin. Wilder's transgressions of political correctness matched his transgressions of good taste. To Wilder, "good taste" was another name for censorship: "I'm accused of being vulgar," he would say. "So much the better. That proves I'm closer to life."

In A Personal Journey Trough the American Cinema (Martin Scorsese - Michael Wilson, éditions Cahiers du cinéma)

Main Films

1933 : Mauvaise graine (Fr.)
1942 :The Major and the Minor
1943 : Five Graves to Cairo
1944 : Double Indemnity
1945 : The Lost Weekend
1948 : The Emperor Waltz
1948 : A Foreign Affair
1950 : Sunset Boulevard
1951 : Ace in the Hole
1953 : Stalag 17
1954 : Sabrina
1955 : The Seven Year Itch
1957 : The Spirit of Saint-Louis
1957 : Love in the Afternoon
1958 : Witness for the Prosecution
1959 : Some Like It Hot
1960 : The Apartement
1961 : One, Two, Three
1963 : Irma la douce
1964 : Kiss Me, Stupid
1966 : The Fortune Cookie
1970 : The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
1972 : Avanti !
1974 : The Front Page
1978 : Fedora
1981 : Buddy Buddy