"The Development of Post-war Literary and Cinematic Noir" - Lee Horsley

Double Indemnity
Crimeculture - "The years immediately following the end of World War Two marked the start of a crucial phase in the creation, definition and popularising of both literary and cinematic noir. There were several concurrent developments: the Hollywood production of a growing number of pessimistic, downbeat crime films, the post-war release in Europe of a large backlog of American films, the publication in France of a new series of crime novels and the appearance in America of a new kind of book, the paperback original. Films released in America just before the end of the war, such as Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity and Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet (both 1944), were taken as evidence, when they appeared in France, that 'the Americans are making dark films too'."
Crimeculture