This classic film directed by Billy Wilder sizzled across the silver screen for the first time in 1944. Starring Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck, this film hails as the star of the had-I-but- known, crime-doesn’t-pay school. The plot is a simple one: an insurance salesman named Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is seduced by the wife of a client, Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), who talks him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder.
The film is based loosely on the real life Ruth Snyder who was the third woman to be electrocuted at Sing Sing for the murder of her husband, 45-year-old Albert Snyder, art director of Motor Boating Magazine, in 1927. Snyder’s lover and accomplice, Judd Gray, was also executed for the crime. They both plotted the murder so that they could be together and live happily ever after on the money gained from the double indemnity clause in poor Albert’s life insurance policy.
Barton Keyes, played deftly by Edward G. Robinson, is the president of the insurance company that employs Walter Neff. He respects and cares for him a great deal, a fact that lends a poignancy so deeply felt at the end of the film when all is discovered and Neff lies bleeding to death on the office floor.
This film has many suspenseful moments, but perhaps none more so than when, after a clandestine meeting at Walter’s house, Barbara Stanwyck must hide behind a door when Barton Keyes pays Walter an unexpected visit. In this case, art does not imitate life, for in this scene the front door opens out into the hallway with Barbara Stanwyck hiding behind it. This would not have been permitted under the building codes of the time because of the fire hazard such a setup creates. Still, it provides an effective place for Barbara Stanwyck to hide. Discovery of her presence would foil the whole plan and the tension builds until Keyes finally decides to go home.
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