An insurance salesman is seduced by a conniving woman into a scheme to murder her husband and make it look like an accident in order to collect his impressive life insurance policy.
Has dialogue ever been more perfectly hard-boiled? Has a femme fatale ever been as deliciously wicked as Barbara Stanwyck? And has 1940s Los Angeles ever looked so seductively sordid? Working with cowriter Raymond Chandler, director Billy Wilder launched himself onto the Hollywood A-list with this epitome of film-noir fatalism from James M. Cain’s pulp novel. When slick salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) walks into the swank home of dissatisfied housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck), he intends to sell insurance, but he winds up becoming entangled with her in a far more sinister way.
Featuring scene-stealing supporting work from Edward G. Robinson and the chiaroscuro (strong contrasts between light and dark) of cinematographer John F. Seitz, “Double Indemnity” is one of the most entertainingly perverse stories ever told.
Film Club Members free; guests $12
Phone: (707) 882-3272
Email: publicity@arenatheater.org
2024/03/25 - 2024/03/25
Arena Theater
214 Main Street, Point Arena, CA 95468