DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)

"I couldn't hear my own footsteps.  It was the walk of a dead man."

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) has a pretty swell life.  He has a cush job as an insurance salesman (semiannual sales record..twice in a row!), he has a cozy apartment and a nice car.  Then his life is turned completely upside-down when he's introduced to Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck).  An outwardly beautiful woman with the soul of a bull shark.  From the very second they lay eyes on each other, it's fireworks!  I love that first scene with them alone together.  There's so much rapid fire double entendres and shit-talking going back and forth, that I couldn't do anything but sit there grinning like a fool, jealous of the brilliant dialogue written by screenwriters Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler.

Anyway, without him even knowing it, from that very first meeting, Phyllis has her claws sunk into Walter's soul and he's doomed.  He tries to play it cool, but then, when she finally admits that she not only wants his help in murdering her husband, but in also setting up an expensive accident insurance policy on him, Walter topples like a house of cards.  He sacrifices his entire life over some sex...but then again, isn't that the short history of humanity?

DOUBLE INDEMNITY is considered a landmark in American cinema and justifiably so.  At the time it came out, there was pretty much nothing like it in regards to the way it looked (darkness everywhere; dust in the air; the shadows of the Venetian blinds going across Walter to look like prison bars, etc.) and the absolute sordid behavior of the lead characters, especially Phyllis Dietrichson.  She's evil through and through.  Just look at her face while her husband is being brutally murdered.  That subtle look of gratification that goes beyond sexual pleasure and into malevolence is extremely disturbing.  And that's really saying a lot about the acting abilities of Barbara Stanwyck (at least to me, because I think that she is the most beautiful woman to ever grace the silver screen).  She's gorgeous, but at the same time completely repulsive.

Fast pace, venomous dialogue, perfect acting, interesting Los Angeles locations, deep shadows, psychosexual themes, costume design by Edith Head, a Raymond Chandler sighting, extremely influential photography that is still being copied today.  Plus...it has the immortal line "They know more tricks than a carload of monkeys." Holy shit!  Hahaha!

I could go on for hours about DOUBLE INDEMNITY, but I'll just cut it short and say that it is required viewing by every classic movie fan.

Fun fact: Edward G. Robinson was was the original singer for Alice in Chain's song "Rooster". "You know he ain't gonna die...yeah, seeeeeee!" True story.

Raymond Chandler (seated)

DETECTIVE STORY (1951)

Based on a popular play of the same name (which from 1949 to 1950 ran for 581 performances on Broadway and featured Ralph Bellamy as the lead actor!  Holy fook!  I bet that was awesome!!!), DETECTIVE STORY tells the story of one day in the life of NYC police Det. Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas).  Instead of following him around town, the events in DS are completely based around the detective's bullpen at the police station.  That sounds risky, but it's not, because DETECTIVE STORY is riveting from beginning to end.  Mainly thanks to the mature script and the intense performances by the entire cast.  And what a cast!  I just spent the last two hours going through the IMDb profiles of the films cast and crew.  That was a lot of fun.

The film opens with a detective bringing in a shoplifter.  From there, we're introduced the the layout of the police station and the fascinating cast of characters.  As the story moves along, more and more characters walk in and out of the film. There's a number of minor stories, but the main story concerns Detective McLeod and his dogged investigation of abortionist Dr. Karl Schneider (played by George Macready, who you might remember paired off against Douglas again six years later in Kubrick's masterful PATHS OF GLORY).  McLeod might hate Schneider now, but that ain't nothing compared to how much he hates him by the end of the movie! 

All of the "lesser" stories are interesting, but the person that really grabbed my attention was accused burglar Joseph Wiseman.  He might only be suspected of robbing houses, but one thing he's definitely guilty of is stealing scenes in the movie!  Holy shit, every single times he's on camera I couldn't take my eyes off of him!  He was amazing.  I'm not saying that to take away from the rest of the cast, cause everybody was great.  Wiseman just happened to be extra great.

One of the most impressive things about DETECTIVE STORY is the amount of information that's so effortlessly given to the audience.  The filmmakers did an amazing job of keeping multiple things going onscreen for the majority of the film.

By today's standards, DETECTIVE STORY is dated, but it's still a great film that deserves to be seen and admired.  Highly recommended.  Would make a very confusing double-feature with Takashi Miike's DETECTIVE STORY.

Very interesting attention to detail (and maybe even foreshadowing?) at 44:39, when Kirk Douglas goes to ask Joseph Wiseman about the monogrammed dish.