The Film Experience

by Eric Blume

This week marked the 75th anniversary of Billy Wilder’s seven-times Oscar nominated noir classic Double Indemnity (1944). If you haven’t seen this movie -- and I surprisingly never had, despite not one but two film noir courses in college -- rush post haste to view it: it’s a classic noir that holds up powerfully.

Fred MacMurray is the patsy, an insurance guy who is convinced by Barbara Stanwyck to murder her husband and cash in on the double indemnity clause in the policy they conspire to have him secretly sign. The performances by MacMurray, Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson (as the insurance boss) have incredible force. Yes, this style of acting went out less than ten years later, but the raw power of their acting is undeniable...

While they stay in the confines of these now-archetypal roles, you can see how these actors laid the rules for so many other films to come. What’s surprising is that the leads aren’t “playing tough” in any way …they keep all their motivations straightforward and human.

Wilder wrote the script with Raymond Chandler, and it’s filled with the kind of 1940s movie talk that still stings and feels crisp today. How can you not smile at voiceover lines like MacMurray’s:

“So we just sat there…she started crying softly like the rain on the window”?

This script is full of gems like that, and you can see all the elements fall into place that Wilder repeated to even greater levels of artistry years later in the masterpiece Sunset Boulevard (1950).

And his work with cinematographer John Seitz still plays beautifully: the blacks are very black, the whites very white, and the shadows are everywhere. You can clearly see the German Expressionism influence that Wilder carried from his years as a native European. The lighting seems to inform the characters, the action, and the location all at the same time. It’s extraordinarily sophisticated filmmaking for its time.

Have you seen this indelible classic? What’s your favorite film noir?

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