Some of the tension is also missing because we're pretty darn sure Uncle Charlie is guilty. I considered a slightly higher rating, but thought the pace in the first half of the movie was a little slow. Trouble is just behind him though, and it gets worse when his niece (also 'Charlie', named after him, and played by Teresa Wright) begins to suspect him of being the "Merry Widow Murderer". Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) is on the run from the law on the East Coast, and he settles in with his sister and her family in Santa Rosa. An impressed Alfred Hitchcock, no less, sent Wilder a telegram that read “Since Double Indemnity, the two most important words in motion pictures are ‘Billy’ and ‘Wilder.Hitchcock said this was his favorite film, and there is a quiet evil about it that makes it truly horrifying. It was the walk of a dead man.” Hailed as an instant classic, Double Indemnity retains its awesome power and fascination over 70 years since its release. Miklos Rozsa’s insistent, foreboding soundtrack acts as a leitmotif for MacMurray’s descent into hell as the innovative first-person narrative tells us after the murder, “I couldn’t hear my own footsteps. Edward G Robinson is also memorable as MacMurray’s boss whose “little man” inside him tells him something’s not quite right about the case. Fred MacMurray is brilliantly cast against type in this landmark film as the cocky insurance salesman seduced by quintessential femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck (never better) into murdering her husband. From the James M Cain novel and featuring taut direction and a sparkling script from Wilder and Raymond Chandler, Double Indemnity set the standard for the genre for years to come.
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