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Fresh (47)
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DVD (23)
Wilder trades Cain's sun-rot imagery for conventional film noir stylings, but the atmosphere of sexual entrapment survives.
MacMurray has seldom given a better performance. It is somewhat different from his usually light roles, but is always plausible and played with considerable restraint.
The film is a brilliant collision of evil and the mundane, and one of the reasons viewers respond to it so well is that it makes the mundane seem a little sexier in the resulting debris.
Such folks as delight in murder stories for their academic elegance alone should find this one steadily diverting, despite its monotonous pace and length.
Few other directors have made so many films that were so taut, savvy, cynical and, in many different ways and tones, funny.
Dark, dialogue-heavy classic of grim suspense.
The perfect material for Wilder to remake himself as Hollywood's dark jester for decades.
Edward G. Robinson stars as MacMurray's associate, but it's Barbara Stanwyck that rules the roost as one of cinema's most diabolical femme fatals.
Writer/director Billy Wilder cements all the hallmarks of a style that comes into its own with this wicked and suspenseful portrait of capitalist greed and post-war anxiety.
Notable for its perfect cast, great performances, deft direction and of course that sparkling dialogue.
Sizzling and sassy, this thriller still cuts it amongst today's effects-laden offerings.
If you like your dialogue hardboiled, your lighting shadowy, and your femmes fatales preposterously evil, then look no further: Billy Wilder's 1944 adaptation of James M Cain's insurance-scam novella.
Right up there with Billy Wilder's very best work.
One of the true gems of film noir.
Thanks to DVD, Phyllis will always be there waiting for you. Same chair, same perfume, same anklet, ready to make you wonder what she wonders.
Wilder's direction is crisp and the lighting and cinematography (by John F. Seitz) have become iconic touchstones.
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