172. Double Indemnity (1944)

Directed By Billy Wilder

Synopsis

Wife wants to get her husband killed with the help of an insurance salesman who makes a double indemnity policy on the guy. It all goes ape-shit.

Review

This is really the quintessential noir film, to the point of parody really. This is such a paragon of the whole noir genre that a lot of the elements here have been used again and again and again and again in film history. You know, homages as they like to say.

From the voice-over to he surreptitious meetings in supermarkets, to the cold hearted woman who is just a psycho playing men to her ends, it is all here. Even visually it is the perfect noir, the shadows the darkness the fact that almost all of it is played in flashback...

There are, however some quite unique elements to this film, I find it quite interesting for example that there is no detective here, all the investigation is done by a Claims Manager in a insurance company, actually making the insurance business look kind of interesting. The part of the "detective" is a brilliant one by Edward G. Robinson who gets some of the best monologues in the whole thing, and the guy who has seen it all in the insurance business.

So if someone asked you to show them what film noir is, this would probably be the ideal film to direct them to.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Both the director and the cinematrographer were big fans of the painter Edward Hopper and were clearly influenced by Hopper's use of shadow and isolation in his works. Raymond Chandler once remarked upon Wilder's admiration for Hopper and his efforts to introduce similar themes into his films. Billy Wilder is believed to be the anonymous benefactor who donated Hoppers to LA area museums.

Edward G. Robinson prized his reputation for professionalism and strong preparation. He reportedly did the tour de force scene where he puts the pompous insurance company president in his place while reciting lengthy actuarial tables verbatim in one take to the astonishment of everyone on the set including the actor playing the executive who is captured on film with his mouth agape.

For years, new employees who began work in the accident and life insurance policy sections at Mutual of Omaha were required to view DOUBLE INDEMNITY and write and essay on what they had learned.

Flirting Scene: