DOUBLE INDEMNITY

In depth look at the classic!

 . Every turn and twist is exactly calculated and achieves its effect with the simplest of means; this shrewd, smoothly tawdry thriller is one of the high points of 40s films. The director, Billy Wilder, collaborated with Raymond Chandler in adapting James M. Cain’s story. Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Sietrichson—a platinum blonde who wears tight white sweaters and sleazy-kinky shoes—is perhaps the best acted and the most fixating of all the slutty, cold-blooded femme fatales of the film-noir genre…Fred MacMurray is the patsy she ensnares in a plot to kill her husband and collect on the double-indemnity clause in his policy. –Pauline Kael