MikePadgett.com

Double Indemnity

— A crackling script but surprisingly short on dramatic tension.”

• Director: Billy Wilder
• United States, 1944
• 

In some life insurance policies, where the policyholder dies in untypical circumstances, the policy pays out double. It’s called double indemnity, and when old Mr Dietrichson gets bumped off in revenge for the heinous crimes of being cranky and middle-aged, it’s made to look like he fell off a moving train.

It follows that the real protagonist in this movie is implausibility. That a housewife with a bad wig could persuade a worldly insurance salesman into helping her to off her husband. That our friendly local salesman would have no qualms about strangling a man with whom he has no beef. That the filmmakers thought a 23-year old actress would pass for the innocent teenage daughter.

Double Indemnity is creatively shot, and as we can expect from Wilder, the script is witty and sharp – indeed, Edward G Robinson positively thrives in his role as the shrewd invesigator Keyes. However, and perhaps this complaint is all too modern, the plot lacks purpose and the characters lack motivation, so the movie is robbed of any real tension.