Double Indemnity
Year: | 1944 |
Studio: | Paramount |
Director: | Billy Wilder |
Writer: | Billy Wilder |
Cast: | Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck |
The genre wasn't new when Double Indemnity appeared in 1944, but it had all the iconic elements in the right place; a beautiful dame with a dark secret (Barbara Stanwyck), an anti-hero everyday Joe dragged into a deadly conspiracy (MacMurray) a style all its own and a sense of foreboding.
The window dressing is dated now, but look beyond it; Wilder's story of an insurance salesman agreeing to murder the cruel husband of a beautiful client is the progenitor of everything from Chinatown to The Last Seduction.