So I got to see one of my favorite movies of all time on 35mm last night. As I posted on Facebook, there's something special about watching old black-and-white movies on 35mm film in a theater. Call me a film geek, but I love the scratches, the sound fading in and out, the communal experience of seeing a film with an audience. In my original review below, I state that Double Indemnity may be in my Top Ten favorite movies of all time, but I'm fairly certain now that the film is entrenched in my Top Five movies. I love it. It's not perfect, but I love it nonetheless.
Below is a repost of my original review of the film.
Below is a repost of my original review of the film.
***Originally posted on January 31, 2009***
starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinsondirected by Billy Wilder
screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler
Neff: You want to know who killed Deitrichson? Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes. I killed Dietrichson. Me, Walter Neff, 35 years old, unmarried, no physical scars...until a while ago, that is. Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. And I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it? It all began last May...
Seriously, they don't make movies like this anymore. With all the crap that they release today, it's nice to see that the film industry at least was able to produce excellent movies at one point in time and thank goodness we can go back and watch them.
A classic film noir, Double Indemnity has all that you would expect in the genre -- people doing bad things to get what they want, putting the audience on the side of the killer, a femme fatale, smoky rooms, and shadowy shots.
Walter Neff (MacMurray), an insurance sales man, confesses at the very beginning of the film to the murder of a man -- a man whose wife Walter has fallen in love with. Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) is unhappy in her marriage and she makes that perfectly clear when Neff visits the Dietrichson home on a sunny summer afternoon to renew her husband's auto insurance. The hubby isn't home, but Phyllis and Neff hit it off right away -- bouncing some incredibly witty, sexy lines off of each other (I am a big Billy Wilder fan and he does not disappoint here).
Unhappy in her marriage, Phyllis desires to take out accident insurance on her husband without his knowledge -- a sure giveaway that she intends to somehow kill him and take the insurance money. Neff doesn't want to be involved at first, but his newfound infatuation takes him over and he agrees to help Phyllis plan and carry out her husband's murder so long as they'll be together in the end.
Believe me, that's not ruining a thing for you as that is all laid out in the first thirty minutes of the film. And it's not ruining a thing to tell you that their plan doesn't succeed as they had planned...heck, you discover that within the first three minutes. It's what happens leading up to the murder and the clean-up afterwards that's a doozy. It's not that it's got a shocker ending like movies today, but there are plenty of unexpected twists that it never gets the least bit boring.
The acting is all top-notch. MacMurray (best known to me as the Absent Minded Professor of Disney movies) is the everyman who turns to the dark side -- completely believable as both a good guy and a bad one. Stanwyck is great -- sexy (in that 1940s Hollywood kind of way) and completely slimy at the same time. You know she's no good from the get-go, but you're lured in by her sultry mystique. Edward G. Robinson, playing an insurance claims investigator (and Neff's co-worker who is researching the Dietrichson case) is a hoot. His wise-ass retorts were spot-on.
And it's Wilder who's to thank for the words that come out of these characters' mouths. The repartee between Neff and Phyllis is amazing -- some of the best lines I've heard in a long time. As I already said, he saves a lot of great stuff for Robinson's character as well.
There's not a wasted scene in this movie. I can't recommend this one more highly. If you haven't seen it, put it in your Netflix queue right away.
A classic film noir, Double Indemnity has all that you would expect in the genre -- people doing bad things to get what they want, putting the audience on the side of the killer, a femme fatale, smoky rooms, and shadowy shots.
Walter Neff (MacMurray), an insurance sales man, confesses at the very beginning of the film to the murder of a man -- a man whose wife Walter has fallen in love with. Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) is unhappy in her marriage and she makes that perfectly clear when Neff visits the Dietrichson home on a sunny summer afternoon to renew her husband's auto insurance. The hubby isn't home, but Phyllis and Neff hit it off right away -- bouncing some incredibly witty, sexy lines off of each other (I am a big Billy Wilder fan and he does not disappoint here).
Unhappy in her marriage, Phyllis desires to take out accident insurance on her husband without his knowledge -- a sure giveaway that she intends to somehow kill him and take the insurance money. Neff doesn't want to be involved at first, but his newfound infatuation takes him over and he agrees to help Phyllis plan and carry out her husband's murder so long as they'll be together in the end.
Believe me, that's not ruining a thing for you as that is all laid out in the first thirty minutes of the film. And it's not ruining a thing to tell you that their plan doesn't succeed as they had planned...heck, you discover that within the first three minutes. It's what happens leading up to the murder and the clean-up afterwards that's a doozy. It's not that it's got a shocker ending like movies today, but there are plenty of unexpected twists that it never gets the least bit boring.
The acting is all top-notch. MacMurray (best known to me as the Absent Minded Professor of Disney movies) is the everyman who turns to the dark side -- completely believable as both a good guy and a bad one. Stanwyck is great -- sexy (in that 1940s Hollywood kind of way) and completely slimy at the same time. You know she's no good from the get-go, but you're lured in by her sultry mystique. Edward G. Robinson, playing an insurance claims investigator (and Neff's co-worker who is researching the Dietrichson case) is a hoot. His wise-ass retorts were spot-on.
And it's Wilder who's to thank for the words that come out of these characters' mouths. The repartee between Neff and Phyllis is amazing -- some of the best lines I've heard in a long time. As I already said, he saves a lot of great stuff for Robinson's character as well.
There's not a wasted scene in this movie. I can't recommend this one more highly. If you haven't seen it, put it in your Netflix queue right away.
The RyMickey Rating: A
I'm going to try and make this classic movie review (movies pre-1980) thing happen once a week. I'm not sure they'll always be good movies (as I may take the time to watch movies I haven't seen before), but I'm hoping that the "classic" moniker will make most of them decent!
I agree. and not just because it has barbara stanwyck. On your rating scale, is there an "A+?"
ReplyDeleteYour Barbara Stanwyck fascination, Anonymous (cough*Meghan*cough), didn't even dawn on me until I was typing the thing up...at which point I said to myself, "Well, at least I know I'll get one comment about this one."
ReplyDeleteAs far as the A+ goes...I haven't decided yet. But, if there needed to be a reason this doesn't get the A+, it's because of the guy that plays MacMurray and Robinson's boss. That guy was an awful actor, reading his lines like he was on a stage or something. So, that can be my reason it doesn't get an A+.
But, still...I seriously think this movie has cracked my Top 10 favorite movies of all time (a list I'll have to think about at some point in time -- haven't given that much thought in a while).