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Movies / On DVD / Double Indemnity
Double Indemnity

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Double Indemnity (1944)

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Reviews Counted:41

Fresh:40

Rotten:1

Average Rating:8.7/10

Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: Billy Wilder's classic noir, a familiar brew of lust, larceny, and lethal intentions, stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck as a hot-blooded couple. Framed in flashback, the story is told by... Billy Wilder's classic noir, a familiar brew of lust, larceny, and lethal intentions, stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck as a hot-blooded couple. Framed in flashback, the story is told by the dying Walter Neff (MacMurray), beginning with his first meeting with the seductive Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) during a routine renewal of her husband's car insurance. After some flirtation she arranges a meeting without her husband, where she asks about an accident policy to be bought without her husband's knowledge. Although repulsed by the implications of her suggestions, his obsession with Phyllis leads Neff to contemplate the possibility of finding a way to kill her husband while making his death look like an accident. After she comes to his apartment, the insurance salesman finally agrees to become involved in the murder, and the two of them begin methodically working out the details. After they dispose of Dietrichson, Neff learns more than he wanted about Phyllis' unsavory past, but realizes he's now too involved to extricate himself. He's also concerned about his a boss, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), an omniscient insurance investigator who has taken over the case. DOUBLE INDEMNITY is brilliant noir, among the best of the genre, with a byzantine yet utterly plausible plot, stylized hard-boiled dialogue by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and three terrific performances by Stanwyck, MacMurray, and Robinson. [More]

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Tom Powers, Jean Heather, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova

Director: Billy Wilder

Director: Billy Wilder
Screenwriter: Raymond Chandler, Billy Wilder
Producer: Joseph Sistrom
Composer: Miklos Rozsa, Cesar Franck

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Jul 21, 1998

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Reviews for Double Indemnity

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Reviews
Tomatometer Critic Review Category
tomato
A+

Cole Smithey

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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Apr., 12 2009 07:56 AM

ColeSmithey.com

tomato
92/100

Radheyan Simonpillai

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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Mar., 26 2009 12:29 PM

AskMen.com

tomato
B

Robert Roten

Notable for its perfect cast, great performances, deft direction and of course that sparkling dialogue.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 22 2008 02:36 PM

Laramie Movie Scope

N/R

David Ansen

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 18 2008 03:15 AM

Newsweek

tomato
4.5/5

Amber Wilkinson

Sizzling and sassy, this thriller still cuts it amongst today's effects-laden offerings.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jun., 13 2008 07:30 AM

Eye for Film

N/R

Urban Cinefile Critics

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Mar., 28 2008 03:15 AM

Urban Cinefile

tomato
4/5

Andrew Pulver

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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Feb., 11 2008 12:22 PM

Guardian [UK]

tomato
4.5/5

Right up there with Billy Wilder's very best work.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Feb., 11 2008 12:03 PM

Channel 4 Film

tomato

Dave Kehr

Wilder trades Cain's sun-rot imagery for conventional film noir stylings, but the atmosphere of sexual entrapment survives.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Feb., 11 2008 12:02 PM

Chicago Reader

tomato

Variety Staff

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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 14 2007 04:22 PM

Variety

tomato
4/4

Forrest Hartman

One of the true gems of film noir.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Nov., 30 2006 04:03 PM

Reno Gazette-Journal

tomato
4/4

Phil Villarreal

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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 08 2006 08:15 AM

Arizona Daily Star

tomato

Douglas Pratt

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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Sep., 23 2006 04:13 AM

Hollywood Reporter

tomato
95/100

Philip Martin

Wilder's direction is crisp and the lighting and cinematography (by John F. Seitz) have become iconic touchstones.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Sep., 01 2006 05:22 AM

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

tomato
3/4

Dan Callahan

An accepted classic and archetypal film noir, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity is visually drab and flabby around the edges.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 23 2006 02:32 PM

Slant Magazine

tomato
A

Emanuel Levy

Three superlative perfromances, by Stanwyck, Fred MacMaurray, and Edward G. Robinson (the best of their careers), along with sharp, witty, macabre, and double-entendre dialogue, makes this quintessential noir one of the best Wilder and studio movies made.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 21 2006 02:42 PM

EmanuelLevy.Com

tomato

This is the gold standard of ’40s noir, straight down the line.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jan., 26 2006 03:16 AM

Time Out

tomato
5/5

Pablo Villaca

Representante máximo do noir, conta com uma trama fascinante, atuações impecáveis, fotografia e direção irretocáveis e, é claro, diálogos inesquecíveis.

comment Comment | Sep., 20 2005 10:11 PM

Cinema em Cena

tomato
5/5

Rob Fraser

Film noir at its finest, a template of the genre, etc. Billy Wilder in full swing, Barbara Stanwyck's finest hour, and Fred MacMurray makes a great chump.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 06 2005 04:22 AM

Empire Magazine

tomato
5/5

Steve Crum

Stanwyck, MacMurray and Robinson are superb in classic murder for profit story.

comment Comment | Jun., 01 2005 08:28 PM

Kansas City Kansan

 
 
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Latest News for Double Indemnity

June 22, 2007: AFI Announces Top 100 Movies of All Time ... Again
Ten years ago the AFI gave us a list of the Top 100 American Films Ever Made -- and when that was done they churned out 15 other lists every few years. And then last night they... More...

June 21, 2007: Frank Miller and Clive Owen to Do Some Old-School Film Noir
Now here's a project that sounds pretty damn cool: Frank Miller directing Clive Owen in an adaptation of a Raymond Chandler story -- and it'll probably be the first in a series! More...

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