Double Vision

I decided to bump another classic film to the top of my list recently: Double Indemnity. Pausing for a moment now to think about it, I'm not so sure this was a good film for me to take a chance on. After all, it is a classic film noir piece, and I've found very little in that genre that I actually like. Well... too late now.

But actually, I thought this movie wasn't too bad. Fred MacMurray stars as an insurance broker who becomes involved with a married woman played by Barbara Stanwyck. The two plot the perfect crime together, to kill her husband and collect a huge payoff on a life insurance policy. But can there really be such a thing as the perfect crime?

It's the middle chunk of this movie that's really the best. The windup at the beginning is interesting, though feels oddly almost rushed. I never thought I'd be suggesting that a movie made in the 1940s was paced too fast, but there's something that seems a little forced and unbelievable in the sudden attraction between these two characters -- and their even more sudden hatching of a plan to off her husband. But I certainly can respect the narrative decision to get to the real meat of the plot, which is not watching two people fall in love.

No, the centerpiece is the formulation, execution, and aftermath of the crime. And even with the limited production values of a 65 year old movie, it draws you in quite effectively. There's tension, excitement, and even some dread. The middle act of this film still holds up.

But then what follows is unfortunately not as interesting. The film doesn't go sour all at once, nor does it ever go completely bad. But with the dramatic climax happening at the halfway point of the story, everything that follows is sort of a slow letting the air out of a balloon. And we even know how it's ultimately going to end, because the film is one long flashback narrated by the main character after the fact. We see him sitting down to tell his tale in the opening few minutes of the movie, and it's not at all ambiguous what has happened to him. The old "XX days earlier" gimmick, even from a time when it wasn't so overused in storytelling, undermines yet another tale.

Director Billy Wilder delivers something that could scarcely be more different from his comedy, Some Like It Hot. Even though I had some reservations about both films, it certainly makes me respect him as a director. As silly and light as that movie was, this movie is equally dark, draped in interesting shadows, and foreboding.

So while I didn't love it, Double Indemnity definitely delivers the goods better than many "classics" I've tried. And I'd wager if you're a fan of film noir, you really like it. I rate it a C+ -- or maybe right at the cusp of a B-, if you were to ask me on a different day.