Double Indemnity (UK-import)
Double Indemnity is the dazzling, quintessential film noir whose enormous popular success and seven Oscar nominations catapulted Billy Wilder ( Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment) into the very top tier of Hollywood’s writer-directors. Adapted from a novella by James M. Cain ( The Postman Always Rings Twice), co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler ( The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye), Double Indemnity remains the hardest-boiled of delectations. Insurance hawker Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) gets seduced by some other man’s wife: a bored, sex-starved Barbara Stanwyck done up in lorry-grille wig and a pair of lips like wine grapes smashed in candle-wax. She wants to off her better half and collect on his policy, but spitfire claims-adjuster Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) smells a rat – or at least the cheap perfume all over that Dietrichson file.
All the categories
