Monday, June 7, 2010

"There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff . . . "



Restrictions on what could be said in a Hollywood movie inspired  dialogue dense with verbal irony--they know what they're talking about, we know what they're talking about -- but nobody's going to come out and say it. This creates a partnership between them that's subversive by its nature--and we collude in it.
(Billy Wilder wrote the script with the mystery writer Raymond Chandler--adapted from the extraordinary novel by James M. Cain.)

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