DVD/150: DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Billy Wilder, 1944)

DOUBLE INDEMNITY is a Film Noir classic with it's tangy dialogue, vivid characters and the darkness lurking behind it's California sunshine.

James M Cain's 1936 novella was considered unfilmable until Paramount chose it for Billy Wilder to direct as his third Hollywood film.

With Cain unavailable to co-write the script, Wilder chose Raymond Chandler whose hard-boiled dialogue worked wonders.

Insurance salesman Walter Neff meets Phyllis Dietrichson when he visits her house wanting her husband to renew his car insurance.  Instantly attracted to each other, Phyllis soon asks if Walter could arrange life insurance for her husband without him knowing. 

Walter gets Dietrichson to unknowingly sign the policy and soon the lovers plan the perfect murder to get the money...

But when Neff's friend, claims investigator Barton Keyes, suspects foul play and gets closer to the truth, Walter realizes he was a pawn in Phyllis' murderous game all along...

Shelf or charity shop? DOUBLE INDEMNITY lives in my DVD storage box but is definitely a keeper.  With it's shadowy photography and ominous score DOUBLE INDEMNITY is definitive Film Noir; Wilder and Chandler's crunchy dialogue crackles onscreen while Wilder's direction keeps the motor racing to the end.  Fred MacMurray, playing against type, is the perfect Noir anti-hero, the man who thinks he is running the game until he realises he's the one being played and he is ably partnered with Edward G Robinson as the fatherly Keyes.  As the deceiving Phyllis, Barbara Stanwyck gave the cinema one of it's great femme fatales.

DVD/150: THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (Tay Garnett, 1946)

Three James M Cain stories became Film Noir classics: DOUBLE INDEMNITY, MILDRED PEARCE and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.

Drifter Frank enquires about a 'Man Wanted' sign at a roadside diner, he is hired by owner Nick whose young wife Cora treats Frank disdainfully.

Their antagonism turns to lust - Cora knows she would lose the diner in a divorce so they decide to murder Nick

Their first attempt is unsuccessful but it arouses the suspicions of the District Attourney.

Nick announces plans to sell up and move to Canada to live with his invalid sister so the couple realise they must act fast.  They kill Nick but are interupted by the DA while attempting to make it look like a car crash. 

The DA charges only Cora with murder - hoping she will implicate Frank - but is out-manouvered by her conniving lawyer.

Frank and Cora are free but fate awaits...

Shelf or charity shop? This lives in my DVD storage box but THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE cries out for more viewings. Lana Turner was never better than as the fresh-faced adultress Cora - her first appearance is Film Noir gold - while John Garfield brings great intensity as Frank.  Tay Garnett's non-stop direction is first class while there is excellent support from Leon Ames as sly DA Sackett and Hume Cronyn who steals scenes as Arthur Keats, Cora's crooked lawyer.

Dvd/150: SUDDEN FEAR (David Miller, 1952)

To celebrate the BFI Joan Crawford season, I watched the thriller which gained her a third Best Actress Oscar nomination, SUDDEN FEAR. 

Playwright Myra Hudson demands Lester Blaine be fired from the lead in her new play; travelling home by train to San Francisco she discovers Blaine is on it too.  Despite their past, Myra is drawn to him and after a whirlwind romance they marry.

Lester discovers Myra will change her will in three days time to give him a small income after her death, so he plots with ex-lover Irene to kill Myra before then.  But Myra accidentally left her Dictaphone on and it recorded them - and Myra hears it the next day...

With time running out, Myra concocts a plan to stop them... but will she succeed?

Crawford is magnificent with hissable support from Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame.  David Miller's direction builds the tension excellently.

Shelf or charity shop? Definitely shelf... apart from a plot contrivance which stretches credibility to breaking point, I always find SUDDEN FEAR delivers Film Noir tension excellently... who knew a tin wind-up dog toy could be so thrilling!!! 

  

Dvd/150: LAURA (Otto Preminger, 1944)

Certain films never set out to be classics of their genre but for some reason became just that.  Considering how the studio system was, these films could have been assigned to another director or actors, and been nothing special but somehow with these films alchemy happened.  Step forward Otto Preminger's glossy film noir LAURA...

Advertising executive Laura is shot dead in her apartment.  Detective Dana Andrews singles out three suspects: waspish columnist Clifton Webb whose launched Laura, rich aunt Judith Anderson and feckless gigolo Vincent Price who leaves her to romance Laura.

The detective becomes fascinated with the beautiful but dead Laura until she suddenly arrives back in her apartment three days after her 'murder' very much alive!  So who was murdered and can the detective find the killer?

Gene Tierney is a luminous Laura while Webb triumphs as the queeny Lydecker.  David Raskin's memorable and haunting theme still delivers.

Shelf or charity shop?  LAURA is actually in DVD limbo (kept in a paper sleeve and in a plastic storage box)...