Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity
by Billy Wilder

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Movie Reviews of Double Indemnity

Movie Review: Wilder Strikes "Noir" Gold
Summary: 5 Stars

"Double Indemnity," a classic "noir" thriller in anybody's book, was directed by Billy Wilder, a guy who knows all the ins and outs, ups and downs and double shuffles of the business better than a short jockey on a tall horse. He's the "go to" guy in a game like this, because he knows all the angles, he knows the lingo and more than that, he has the insights to make it play out like it was the real deal; this guy knows what makes people tick, what motivates them and it's an ace up his sleeve that he plays like a trump card when the chips are down or even if a stack or two looks like they're about to go over. He knows the whole layout, from top to bottom and side to side because he wrote the script along with another guy you might have heard about, Raymond Chandler, another member of the club who just happens to know his way around the block and back again. This is a guy who doesn't need a road map to tell him which way to go; he's the guy who "invented" the map. And when a couple of the boys like Wilder and Chandler get together to make it up and put it down, it's as good as in the can, especially when they're getting the skinny in the first place from James M. Cain, who it just so happens wrote the novel this movie's based on. Besides which, they got the names Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck down on the dotted lines, the ones that count, the ones that say they're the ones who are the stars of the picture, see? Let's face it, that's like having Ruth, Mantle and Mays in the outfield at the same time with Sandy Koufax on the mound and Don Drysdale warming up behind him in the bull pen. The opposition might as well climb back on the bus and take the long ride on the short pier, because Wilder's team already has the big "W" next to their name in the box score.

Like I said before, and I'm going to say it again because if there's one thing I've learned during my time on the planet it's that sometimes people just don't listen, or maybe there's some things they just don't want to hear. But like I was saying, this story's about an insurance scam, a dirty deal that all starts when Mr. Walter Neff (MacMurray), a salesman with a head a couple of sizes too big for his hat, makes a house call and runs into a dame, and not just any dame; her name is Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck), a woman with the kind of beauty that stops traffic, turns heads and makes monkeys out of guys like Neff, guys that think they got it knocked when all the time they're standing in quicksand and don't even know it till they're in up to their ears and gasping for that last breath. But that's the name of the game; Neff isn't the first guy to find his tiller on the wrong side of the mule because of a pretty face, moist lips and the sweet smell of perfume that sells it all like the siren's song, and he won't be the last to have the deal closed by promises of something that never will be and never has been, though it's victims are heaped along the side of the carefree highway like mounds of bark dust just waiting to be spread or lost in the wind.

Maybe that's not a pretty picture, but everything can't be a glossy print on Kodak paper, and you can take that to the bank because history's full of stories like this. Let's face it, Monet didn't have good eyesight, Van Gogh was down an ear and neither Mona nor her sister Lisa knew how to smile. And when a pair like Walter and Phyllis get together to cook a stew, there's always a Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) waiting in the wings for them to screw up, take a wrong step or flash a tell that attracts a guy with a nose for fraud like a metal rod drawing lightening.

It takes some real "pros" to play the game at this level, and that's Wilder's team all right; but he needed some support to win this big, and he got it from the likes of Porter Hall (Mr. Jackson), Jean Heather (Lola), Tom Powers (Mr. Dietrichson) and Byron Barr (Nino). This film will give you the kind of ride a Six Flags park could only dream of, and that's what makes "Double Indemnity" one you're going to remember like a first kiss on a warm night in summer.

Summary of Double Indemnity