“I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn't get the money. And I didn't get the woman.” Walter Neff

Many of us, I’m sure, grew up watching Fred MacMurray on My Three Sons, either in the original series or the endless reruns that have played from the 1960s to date. But those who think of Fred MacMurray as a likeable, somewhat dense father figure will be in for a rude awakening if they see his work in the dark thriller Double Indemnity.

Fred MacMurray both stars and narrates the film, a masterpiece from the oeuvre of multitalented Director Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Sabrina). MacMurray and Wilder would collaborate again in The Apartment (1960).

Adding to the sterling work by Messrs. MacMurray and Wilder we have the lady who set the standard for femmes fatales Barbara Stanwyck. While Mary Astor (Maltese Falcon), Lauren Bacall (The Big Sleep), and Faye Dunaway (Chinatown) essayed similar shady ladies, Stanwyck topped them all with her undeniably seductive, sexy, and totally evil Phyllis Dietrichson.

Is there any such thing as “the perfect crime?” Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) seems to think so. A fast talking, amoral insurance salesman, who drops by a policyholder’s residence to get a signature on an auto insurance renewal, he is heaven-sent to the unsatisfied hausfrau Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck) who confides her desire to rid herself of her absent and inattentive husband. The two hatch a plot to get him to unwittingly sign a big accident insurance policy with double indemnity, and then bump him off and live on the fruits of their ill-gotten gains…

Like the old saying goes, “there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip,” and the “perfect” crime begins to unravel. I don’t want to give away all the surprises but suffice it to say that insurance claims investigator Barton Keyes, Edward G. Robinson (Little Caesar, Soylent Green), playing a good guy for once, provides a lot of the impetus that makes Walter Neff a bundle of jangling nerves long before the final fatal encounter between the protagonists.

Another element that sets Double Indemnity apart from the film noir herd is the intelligent screenplay, adapted from the James Cain short story by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, a name you’ll recognize as he also wrote 1946’s The Big Sleep which made a sensation of Bogart and 19 year-old Lauren Bacall. The screenplay makes MacMurray’s Walter Neff a tragic figure of almost Shakespearean proportions. Yet the characters remain an enigma: we are never sure what they really think. The sassy banter affected by MacMurray is pointed and full of double entendres and delivered with split second timing. The direction by Billy Wilder, photography full of dark shadows and odd angles by John Seitz, and the score by the great Miklos Rosza (Ben Hur, El Cid) keeps the suspense bubbling without relent.

Double Indemnity is available in DVD and VHS formats, both in the 4x3 theatrical format as the film was made before widescreen format was introduced in the 1950s. This is one film that you won’t want to miss.

More film noir fun:

The Big Sleep

The Maltese Falcon

Sunset Boulevard

Enjoy a good film tonight!


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening