Review of Double Indemnity (1973) by Devon B — 20 Mar 2009

Fred MacMurray plays Walter Neff, the tough-as-nails... insurance salesman? He's the type of fella that's been around the block. He calls broads "dames" and says things like "they know more tricks than a carload of monkeys" and "they'll hang you just as sure as ten dimes'll buy you a dollar".

The person they're going to hang is Mrs. Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), a dame who's unhappy in her marriage and is looking to collect a little dough on the way out. She picks out Neff as a pidgeon, see, and figures the sap for a real chump who'll play ball so long as she makes with the old "sweetness" routine.

But as I said before, Neff is nobody's all-day sucker. But her IS interested in beating the system he works in from the inside out. Perhaps it's more about the challenge than the money for him, as he schemes to commit the perfect murder.

"Double Indemnity" is film noir, directed in a style of shadows and sharp blacks and whites, and sometimes comes off as Hitchcockian. Even though it was made at the height of WWII, it's not an escapist fantasy.

Neither of the main characters is sympathetic, in fact, Stanwyck's character is downright nasty. The film builds in tension as we follow the two schemers into the ever-tightening noose of justice.

Edward G. Robinson plays the bloodhound-like insurance investigator never gives up the case, explaining that there's no such thing as the "perfect murder" when there's more than one murderer involved.

Someone always makes a mistake.