| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Fred MacMurray | ... | Walter Neff | |
| Barbara Stanwyck | ... | Phyllis Dietrichson | |
| Edward G. Robinson | ... | Barton Keyes | |
| Porter Hall | ... | Mr. Jackson | |
| Jean Heather | ... | Lola Dietrichson | |
| Tom Powers | ... | Mr. Dietrichson | |
| Byron Barr | ... | Nino Zachetti | |
| Richard Gaines | ... | Mr. Norton | |
| Fortunio Bonanova | ... | Sam Gorlopis | |
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John Philliber | ... | Joe Pete |
In 1938, Walter Neff, an experienced salesman of the Pacific All Risk Insurance Co., meets the seductive wife of one of his clients, Phyllis Dietrichson, and they have an affair. Phyllis proposes to kill her husband to receive the proceeds of an accident insurance policy and Walter devises a scheme to receive twice the amount based on a double indemnity clause. When Mr. Dietrichson is found dead on a train track, the police accept the determination of accidental death. However, the insurance analyst and Walter's best friend Barton Keyes does not buy the story and suspects that Phyllis has murdered her husband with the help of another man. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The best film adaptation of a James M. Cain novel ever made (neither version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" even comes close). The script, by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, is flawless. Wilder's direction is masterful. The cast is phenomenal, with Fred McMurray as a smart-talking but naive chump, Edward G. Robinson as a shrewd and relentless insurance investigator, and Barbara Stanwyck (her very best performance ever, IMO) as a scheming wife who wants her inconvenient husband out of the way.
The smartly-written dialogue still snaps and crackles and the suspense has lost none of its edge in the 70-plus years since the film was made. This is as fine a thriller as you'll ever see and a film that truly deserves being called a classic.