Double Indemnity ***** (1944, Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G Robinson) – Classic Movie Review 164

Co-writer-director Billy Wilder’s 1944 black and white film noir thriller milestone Double Indemnity still plays beautifully whether on late-night TV or on cinema revivals. Hugely admired and much imitated, it is a sizzling movie masterpiece.

Boldly playing against type, Fred MacMurray trades in his regular Hollywood nice guy image and triumphs in his unexpected casting as the wily Walter Neff, a clever, experienced but shifty insurance salesman of the Pacific All-Risk Insurance Co, who is lured into an insurance-killing scam by the wife of one of his clients, slutty femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck). The two embark on a torrid affair. But she has money on her mind. She wants him to murder her husband (Tom Powers) for the indemnity money, though it turns out that this can be doubled if he falls from a moving train.

Soon, the unfortunate Mr Dietrichson (Tom Powers) is found dead on the tracks, the cops believe that it is the accident it seems to be, and it looks like the duo have got away with it.

With Stanwyck a brilliant femme fatale, blonde, bold, brassy and brittle, giving a masterclass (mistressclass?) in duplicity and shallowness, there is superb acting from the two well-matched stars at their peak. Wilder chose a bad wig for Stanwyck to wear to emphasise Phyllis’s sleazy phoniness, and even so she looks most seductive. Edward G Robinson is on great form too, showing the importance of being quietly earnest in his role as Barton Keyes, MacMurray’s suspicious boss and friend, the insurance claims investigator who is doggedly looking into the case.

This is ideal material for Wilder. On his best cynical form, he directs atmospherically and corkscrew tautly, working with a razor-sharp, darkly witty screenplay that he and legendary thriller author Raymond Chandler adapted from the James M Cain novella Double Indemnity (inspired by the real-life 1927 Snyder-Gray story), which was first published as an eight-part serial in Liberty magazine beginning in February 1936, and then published in book form in his 1943 collection Three of a Kind.

With a top-notch score by Miklos Rozsa and luminous film noir cinematography by John F Seitz, Double Indemnity is many ways the quintessential Forties film noir thriller and one of the finest suspense mysteries ever made.

There were seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography Black-and-White and Best Scoring, but absolutely no wins. The New York film critics unwittingly insulted Stanwyck and Wilder by placing them third as best actress and director. Still, hindsight is 20/20 vision.

It is remade for TV in 1954 for Lux Video Theatre with Laraine Day, Frank Lovejoy and Ray Collins, and again in 1973 as the TV movie Double Indemnity, and it undoubtedly provided the spark that kindled 1981’s similarly themed and minded Body Heat.

Wilder seemed to relish casting the squeaky clean-imaged MacMurray as a sleaze ball. He plays that role here and in The Apartment and Wilder wanted him for the William Holden role in Sunset Boulevard, though that time he refused to play a gigolo. It took dogged persistence by Wilder to get MacMurray to agree to play Walter Neff.

Also in the cast are Porter Hall as Mr Jackson, Jean Heather as Lola Dietrichson, Tom Powers as Mr Dietrichson, Byron Barr as Nino Zachetti, Richard Gaines as Mr Norton, Fortunio Bonanova as Sam Gorlopis, truck driver, John Philliber as elevator operator Joe Pete, Bess Flowers as Norton’s secretary, Betty Farrington as the Dietrichson’s maid Nettie, Teala Loring as Pacific All-Risk Insurance Co telephone operator, Sam McDaniel as Charlie, Garage Attendant, Douglas Spencer as Neff’s office mate Lou Schwartz, Kernan Cripps, Oscar Smith, Edmund Cobb and Miriam Nelson as Barton Keyes’s secretary

Raymond Chandler has an on-screen cameo as man reading a magazine outside Keyes’ office.

Wilder considered Double Indemnity technically his best film, with fewest scripting and shooting mistakes. He was always proudest of the compliments from Cain about Double Indemnity and from Agatha Christie about Witness for the Prosecution.

Double Indemnity is directed by Billy Wilder, runs 106 minutes, is made and released by Paramount, is written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, based on the James M Cain novella Double Indemnity, is shot in black and white by John F Seitz, is produced by Buddy G DeSylva (executive producer) and Joseph Sistrom, is scored by Miklos Rozsa, and is designed by David S Hall.

RIP Miriam Nelson, dancer and choreographer for seven decades, who died at 98 on 12 August 2018.

Barbara Stanwyck recalled: ‘When Billy Wilder sent me the script of Double Indemnity, I read it. When I went back to his office, I said: “I love the script and I love you, but I am a little afraid after all these years of playing heroines to go into an out-and-out cold-blooded killer.” And Mr Wilder – and rightly so – looked at me and he said, “Well, are you a mouse or an actress?” And I said, “Well, I hope I’m an actress.” He said, “Then do the part.” And I did and I’m very grateful to him.’

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 164

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