Double Indemnity. (PG.)
Directed by Billy Wilder. 1944.
Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Jean Heather, Tom Powers, Byron Barr and Porter Hall. Black and white. Out on 3 Disc 4K UHD or 2 disc Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection. 108 mins.
The cinematography is as black and white as black and white can be; its morality, rather less so. The James M Cain story it is based on cost Wilder his regular writing partner, Charles Brackett, who considered the material too trashy. As a result, Wilder had to make do with Raymond Chandler. The upshot was Wilder's first big hit in the director's chair and perhaps the first classic film noir, the one that set the standard for everything that followed. The postman only rang twice, but Double Indemnity would be knocked off hundreds of times.
Once established, the story of a dope who thinks he's smart and comes up with the perfect murder in order to get with the femme fatale would prove endlessly appealing. Insurance agent Walter Neff (MacMurray) falls for Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson the moment he turns up at her house to renew her husband’s car insurance policy and sees her wrapped in a towel. She reels him into a plot to do away with her rich but inattentive other half so smoothly he really believes that it was all his idea. And perhaps it was; driven less by desire for her but the challenge of trying to outsmart his boss and mentor Barton Keyes (Robinson.)
The film is driven by three stellar performances. In just about his sole venture outside of his usual role as loveable family comedy father and Disney stalwart, MacMurray is an adorable chump. Stanwyck makes a great show of the seduction. You suspect the reality is less than the facade but she gives that facade everything. In any other film, Robinson would be way ahead as the star turn. Maybe he edges it here. All the little bits of business he is given about his digestion telling him something is wrong and the lighting of cigarettes could be tiresome in lesser hands but he makes magic of it.
It's a classic certainly but might I hesitatingly, slightly devil's advocate here, suggest some reasons why it didn't quite grab me. Neff's foolproof scheme, variations of which he's probably been working on for much of his career, didn't strike me as that smart. Chandler writes fantastic dialogue, "We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet,” “I think you're swell - so long as I'm not your husband.” But it's so slick it just slides you right past the drama and the emotion of it. All you get is eloquence, three dialogue delivery machines, rather than people involved in extreme situations. You don't feel it.
That’s my take, but hell I don’t expect anyone else to buy it.
Specs and extras.
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Directed by Billy Wilder. 1944.
Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Jean Heather, Tom Powers, Byron Barr and Porter Hall. Black and white. Out on 3 Disc 4K UHD or 2 disc Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection. 108 mins.
The cinematography is as black and white as black and white can be; its morality, rather less so. The James M Cain story it is based on cost Wilder his regular writing partner, Charles Brackett, who considered the material too trashy. As a result, Wilder had to make do with Raymond Chandler. The upshot was Wilder's first big hit in the director's chair and perhaps the first classic film noir, the one that set the standard for everything that followed. The postman only rang twice, but Double Indemnity would be knocked off hundreds of times.
Once established, the story of a dope who thinks he's smart and comes up with the perfect murder in order to get with the femme fatale would prove endlessly appealing. Insurance agent Walter Neff (MacMurray) falls for Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson the moment he turns up at her house to renew her husband’s car insurance policy and sees her wrapped in a towel. She reels him into a plot to do away with her rich but inattentive other half so smoothly he really believes that it was all his idea. And perhaps it was; driven less by desire for her but the challenge of trying to outsmart his boss and mentor Barton Keyes (Robinson.)
The film is driven by three stellar performances. In just about his sole venture outside of his usual role as loveable family comedy father and Disney stalwart, MacMurray is an adorable chump. Stanwyck makes a great show of the seduction. You suspect the reality is less than the facade but she gives that facade everything. In any other film, Robinson would be way ahead as the star turn. Maybe he edges it here. All the little bits of business he is given about his digestion telling him something is wrong and the lighting of cigarettes could be tiresome in lesser hands but he makes magic of it.
It's a classic certainly but might I hesitatingly, slightly devil's advocate here, suggest some reasons why it didn't quite grab me. Neff's foolproof scheme, variations of which he's probably been working on for much of his career, didn't strike me as that smart. Chandler writes fantastic dialogue, "We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet,” “I think you're swell - so long as I'm not your husband.” But it's so slick it just slides you right past the drama and the emotion of it. All you get is eloquence, three dialogue delivery machines, rather than people involved in extreme situations. You don't feel it.
That’s my take, but hell I don’t expect anyone else to buy it.
Specs and extras.
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring film critic Richard Schickel
- New interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg, editor of Billy Wilder on Assignment
- New conversation between film historians Eddie Muller and Imogen Sara Smith
- Billy, How Did You Do It?, a 1992 film by Volker Schlöndorff and Gisela Grischow featuring interviews with director Billy Wilder
- Shadows of Suspense, a 2006 documentary on the making of Double Indemnity
- Radio adaptations from 1945 and 1950
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastién
- New cover by Greg Ruth
