Rating: NR
Genre:
Crime
Release Date: 08/22/2006
SubTitles: French/Espanol
Dubbed: English/Espanol
Sound: DDM2.0
Run Time: 182 Minutes
Flags: Violence, Adult Situations
Distributor/Studio: MCA Home Video
Directed by
Billy Wilder and adapted from a
James M. Cain novel by
Wilder and
Raymond Chandler,
Double Indemnity represents the high-water mark of 1940s
film noir urban crime dramas in which a greedy, weak man is seduced and trapped by a cold, evil woman amidst the dark shadows and Expressionist lighting of modern cities.
Phyllis Dietrichson (
Barbara Stanwyck) seduces insurance agent
Walter Neff (
Fred MacMurray) into murdering her husband to collect his accident policy. The murder goes as planned, but after the couple's passion cools, each becomes suspicious of the other's motives. The plan is further complicated when
Neff's boss
Barton Keyes (
Edward G. Robinson), a brilliant insurance investigator, takes over the investigation. Told in flashbacks from
Neff's perspective, the film moves with ruthless determinism as each character meets what seems to be a preordained fate. Movie veterans
Stanwyck,
MacMurray, and
Robinson give some of their best performances, and
Wilder's cynical sensibility finds a perfect match in the story's unsentimental perspective, heightened by
John Seitz's hard-edged cinematography.
Double Indemnity ranks with the classics of mainstream Hollywood movie-making.
~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
