Director: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder (screenplay), Raymond Chandler (screenplay)
Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
Storyline
In 1938, Walter Neff, an experienced salesman of the Pacific All Risk
Insurance Co., meets the seductive wife of one of his clients, Phyllis
Dietrichson, and they have an affair. Phyllis proposes to kill her
husband to receive the proceeds of an accident insurance policy and
Walter devises a scheme to receive twice the amount based on a double
indemnity clause. When Mr. Dietrichson is found dead on a train-track,
the police accept the determination of accidental death. However, the
insurance analyst and Walter's best friend Barton Keyes does not buy the
story and suspects that Phyllis has murdered her husband with the help
of another man. Written by
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
User Reviews
Best American Film Noir ever made
"I liked the way that
anklet bit into her leg. I wanted to see her again, up close, without
that silly staircase between us."--Walter Neff, after meeting Phyllis
Dietrichson This is Fred MacMurray like you've never seen him before.
He's edgy and sharp, and amoral, although he hides it well from his
boss. Barbara Stanwyck's astounding performance set the standard for bad
girls in Film Noir for years to come. I love this film because it is a
perfect example of how the censorship of the time made it so that
filmmakers had to get the sexiness across in a subtle way. This movie is
undeniably sexy, and there's not a single 'love scene' in it!
