Inscribed presentation copy, signed by Chandler to famed film director Billy Wilder on the front free endpaper: "For Billy: I'd have made it more sexy, if I had known you sooner. Ray." The collaboration of Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder on the creation of the screenplay for the film noir landmark, "Double Indemnity," is one of Hollywood's greatest legendary stories. In 1943, Wilder had been asked by Paramount Pictures to adapt and direct a film version of James M. Cain's novella. Wilder happened to read a copy of Chandler's "The High Window" and was immediately struck by his amazing talent and ability as a writer. "Double Indemnity" would be the first of many screenplays Chandler worked on, of which Wilder would later say about Chandler is that he "had one of the greatest creative minds I've ever encountered." The resulting film, starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson, has become one of the great classics of American cinema and is acknowledged as the finest example of film noir. It received two Academy Awards nominations: Best Screenplay and Best Picture. This is Chandler's third book and a Philip Marlowe mystery novel. Bruccoli III-1a.