Double Indemnity (1944) Review

Juror #3 says: A few years ago I attended a Film Noir festival at the Film Forum in NYC.  I had a film-fanatic-friend that was a huge film noir fan, and I had seen few. I left the festival after having viewed titles like "Laura" and "Touch of Evil", and I had fallen in love with film noir; The gritty style, the smooth (and/or cocky) leading man, the femme fatale, the cutting dialogue.  And "Double Indemnity" has it all. Fred MacMurray (with aid from Billy Wilder) delivers a complex lead character who finds himself smitten with Barbara Stanwyck, a temptress with an angel's face. The two characters begin a dangerous game of insurance fraud that ends wildly, with no winners. The acting is brilliant in its subtle ease, and Billy Wilder uses the camera to add the complexities to the story and the characters themselves. Just as in all good movies, there is a supporting character that carries his scenes so well you wish they were on camera twice as much. Edward G Robinson plays the character "Keyes", the man who would break this insurance scam wide-open...and he is phenomenal.
Even more impressive is the fact that the two main characters are quite unlikable in their motives and yet you remain engaged without really caring if they fail. And I imagine the content of the movie was rather shocking to a 1940's audience.
But check this out about the ending of the movie (from wikipedia): The original ending (from the book) called for the characters to commit double suicide. Suicide, however, was strictly forbidden at the time by the Hays Production Code as a way to resolve a plot, so Wilder wrote and filmed a different ending in which Neff (MacMurray) goes to the gas chamber while Keyes watches. This scene was shot before the scenes that eventually became the film's familiar ending, and once that final intimate exchange between Neff and Keyes revealed its power to Wilder, he began to wonder if the gas chamber ending was needed at all. "You couldn't have a more meaningful scene between two men", Wilder said. As he would later recount, "The story was between the two guys. I knew it, even though I had already filmed the gas chamber scene... So we just took out the scene in the gas chamber." The footage and sound elements are lost, but production stills of the gas chamber scene still exist.
 
Overall I rate the movie 4/5 stars on Netflix.

girl by locker says: As soon as I finished watching Double Indemnity I texted Juror #3 and said “Wow.” To me, this is the best movie we have seen in the 1940’s and probably my favorite since we watched “M” back in 1931. It was flawless. I was instantly drawn into the film as we see Walter Neff struggle into his office building, obviously hurt, and sits down at his desk to narrate. You wonder what is happening when Neff begins the story, a classic one, “I killed him for money - and a woman - and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman.” Like I said, “Wow.”

I was further pulled into the movie, completely sold, when Phyllis makes her entrance. Neff wants her husband to renew his insurance and Phyllis comes to the landing on the stairs to see who is at the door, stunning and scantily clad in a towel. (We have come a LONG way since Way Down East, 1920, when Lennox Sanderson seduces little Anna Moore after he can’t control himself upon seeing her ankles). Here is one of my favorite dialogues in the movie between Neff and Phyllis. Have I mentioned how great the writing is as well?


Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then.
Neff: Who?
Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren't you?
Neff: 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.
Neff: How fast was I going, officer?
Phyllis: I'd say around ninety.
Neff: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
Neff: Suppose it doesn't take.
Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
Neff: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.
Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.
Neff: That tears it.
Basically, I think this movie is a must see for anyone, film fanatic or casual watcher alike. It is beautiful, artistic, edgy, well acted, incredibly directed, fantastically written, and I whole-heartedly give this movie 5 out of 5 stars on Netflix.