Was re-watching Double Indemnity recorded from TCM this morning and saw the last scene with Fred MacMurray and Edward G Robinson..

MacMurray is bleeding out on the floor and pulls a blood stained cigarette out and Robinson strikes the match with his finger tip just like MacMurray has done through out the movie and lights it for him. One of those shots that is perfect Film Noir:

This movie has always bothered me by the way FM says Baby to everything Barbara Stanwyck. It just sounds so funny coming from him. Just doesn’t sound natural coming from him.
I’ve been wondering a lot about the matches they used in the movies. Were they movie made, special props? Or is that how easy it was to light matches back in the day?
You see someone light a match from behind someone’s ear. Or they strike the match against a fence post. Was it special effects, or just good matches?

I read where strike-anywhere matches were changed years ago, and the new ones won't strike anywhere like the old ones do in the movies. I too, wondered about this, it is a great special effect. I love the movie,too, have it on DVD. "I didn't get the money, I didn't get the woman......."

Yeah they were sold as kitchen matches. In addition to practicing cool ways to flip open your Zippo and light a smoke you also practiced striking kitchen matches with your fingernail using one hand only. Some guys enjoyed lighting their matches off their teeth or zipper on their pants.

Another technique was strking one match in a book of matches with one hand while driving. On more than one occasion the whole book went up in flames.

I think the use of "baby" by ol' Fred was just the slang of the times. Like Bogey saying, "Angel, Doll, Mugs, Saps,Dopes, etc.

Regards to the matches, I liked to throw them on the sidewalks..everyday was like the 4th of July.

Also, I would drop them down the barrel of my bb gun & shoot them at the outside wall or brick work. Like I had a flamethrower. Only took a few returnable pop bottles to arm myself with a box of the red-heads strike anywhere.

I remember reading about matches prior to the "strike anywhere" matches that were even easier to light.

It's a Billy Wilder bit. Discussed here.

Wilder uses this bit in at least three of his films- Double Indemnity, Ace in the Hole, and Stalag 17.

Yeah, Wilder used that match bit to good effect more than once. I thought the best was with William Holden and Neville Brand. And “Strike Anywhere” matches were very real. I remember my grandpa would light them with one hand using his thumb.

quote:

Originally posted by recoatlift:

Also, I would drop them down the barrel of my bb gun & shoot them at the outside wall or brick work. Like I had a flamethrower. Only took a few returnable pop bottles to arm myself with a box of the red-heads strike anywhere.

I used to do that in the morning waiting on the bus to school to arrive... totally forgot about that....