1944 Directed by Billy Wilder
A rich woman and a calculating insurance agent plot to kill her unsuspecting husband after he signs a double indemnity policy. Against a backdrop of distinctly Californian settings, the partners in crime plan the perfect murder to collect the insurance, which pays double if the death is accidental.
Fred MacMurray Barbara Stanwyck Edward G. Robinson Porter Hall Richard Gaines Jean Heather Tom Powers Fortunio Bonanova Byron Barr John Berry Raymond Chandler Edmund Cobb Kernan Cripps Bess Flowers Eddie Hall Teala Loring Sam McDaniel Billy Mitchell Clarence Muse Douglas Spencer John Philliber Harold Garrison James Adamson Betty Farrington George Magrill Constance Purdy Dick Rush Floyd Shackelford Oscar Smith Show All…
Κολασμένη Αγάπη, Verzekering op de dood, Pacto de sangre, Dvostruka obmana, Shinya no kokuhaku, 이중 배상, Bloedgeld, 双倍赔偿, 双重保险, 双重生活, Assurance sur la mort, Podwójne ubezpieczenie, Двойна застраховка, Perdició, Pojistka smrti, Kvinden uden samvittighed, Frau ohne Gewissen, Διπλή ταυτότητα, Perdición, غرامت مضاعف, Nainen ilman omaatuntoa, ביטוח חיים כפול, Gyilkos vagyok, La fiamma del peccato, 深夜の告白, Dviguba kompensacija, Pacto de Sangue, Pagos a Dobrar, Asigurare de moarte, Двойная страховка, Poistka smrti, Kvinna utan samvete, Çifte Tazminat, Подвійна страховка, 双重赔偿, 雙重保險
USA
USA
USANR
UK
Australia
FranceU
Spain
Netherlands9
Germany6
SpainAPTA
AustraliaPG
Netherlands9
Australia
France
Germany
Netherlands
Spain
UK
USA
every film noir: this femme fatale has seduced and murdered 17 people
me: and i hope she seduces and murders me next!
Gah, the dialogue in this movie is soooo good.
Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening around 8:30? He'll be in then.
Walter: Who?
Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him, weren't you?
Walter: Yeah, I was. But I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.
Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.
Walter: How fast was I going, officer?
Phyllis: I'd say around ninety.
Walter: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
Walter: Suppose it doesn't take.
Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over…
One of those classic noirs that totally earns its place on every list it makes and to this day is still a perversely “rotten” romance wrapped up in a sharply-pointed view of how closely-related economic prosperity and cutthroat savagery can be. Love the witty, playful tone billy Wilder manages to strike with such cynical ideas, and the inevitability that he has linger over every frame and piece of gorgeous LA architecture. There's this very addictive quality to the theatricality of the dialogue too that practically doubles as a love letter to... Words, I guess, but it totally fits for a film about façades and salesmen weaving plans and stories (that bit where he has to role-play as the shape of the…
Part of Noir-November
“I wonder if I know what you mean.” “I wonder if you wonder.”
The insurance business is an inherently slimy game. Doesn’t matter the type: life, health, automobile, disability. It’s all dirty. It can’t help but be. Everyone needs the product—everyone faces risks against which they must hedge—but the insurer only makes a buck by not paying out claims. All well and good if no claims come in, but people inevitably die or get sick, wreck their cars or have accidents. Claims are inevitably made. The insurer’s job ends up being not to provide the service it has just sold. It’s a bait and switch—a promise of assistance followed by a laundry list of reasons why that…
All you need to make a movie is a girl, a gun, and a life insurance policy.
I love this movie beyond measure. I love its chokingly lyrical (and so very Raymond Chandler), inch perfect screenplay. I love its dark humor, and the absurdity of glamorous Phyllis and anxious Walter skulking around a grocery store so aggressively sterile it seems to come from inside the monolith in 2001. I love the long takes, and the way the austerity of Billy Wilder's shooting style contrasts so perfectly with the labyrinthine language and tale it's recording. But, most of all, I love Walter Neff and Barton Keyes.
I love that, less than 30 minutes into the film, the last decade of Walter's life is already laid out before our eyes. We see him as a 24-year-old, new insurance man,…
Just last week, I watched Notorious for the first time. It was just about perfect, really, except for one thing: in his darker films, Hitchcock tends to make his protagonists unsympathetic and his leading ladies unconvincingly good. Because of that, there seems something missing in his noirish films, in Notorious and Rear Window and a few others, that makes me dislike them just a little more than I should.
Well, Double Indemnity does just the opposite, and how I love it. It's sort of like Psycho, in that the leading man is oddly sympathetic and the leading lady always suspect. But there's a core of sadness in the lead pair in Double Indemnity, instead of the shiftiness that characterizes both…
