Double Indemnity (1944)
Starring
Fred MacMurray and Barnara Stanwyck
Director
Billy Wilder
Awards
Academy Award Nominations
Best Director - Billy Wilder
Best Picture
Best (Adapted) Screenplay - Raymond
Chandler
Plot Synopsis
Based on James M. Cain's hardboiled novel, Billy Wilder's noir
classic is a chilling study of human nature at its most venal. Barbara Stanwyck is the
ultimate femme fatale who lures a hapless insurance salesman into a plot to off her
wealthy husband. When the salesman comes to the woman's suburban home
pedaling insurance
policies, the wife seduces him into helping her pull off the "perfect crime":
murder the husband, then make it look like he was killed by a train so they can collect on
a double indemnity accident claim.
Film Notes
"Director Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard) and writer
Raymond Chandler (The
Big Sleep) adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into
this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), who schemes the
perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck): kill
Dietrichson's husband and make off with the insurance money. But, of course, in these
plots things never quite go as planned, and Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is the wily
insurance investigator who must sort things out. From the opening scene you know Neff is
doomed, as the story is told in flashback; yet, to the film's credit, this doesn't
diminish any of the tension of the movie. This early film-noir flick is wonderfully
campy by today's standards, and the dialogue is snappy ("I thought you were smarter
than the rest, Walter. But I was wrong. You're not smarter, just a little taller"),
filled with lots of "dame's and baby's." Stanwyck is the ultimate femme
fatale, and MacMurray, despite a career largely defined by roles as a softy (notably
in the TV series My Three Sons and the movie The
Shaggy Dog), is
convincingly cast against type as the hapless, love-struck sap." (Jenny Brown,
Amazon.com)
Rated: NR
Rated: NR