What It's About:

Gorgeous schemer Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) enlists a besotted insurance salesman, Walter Neff (MacMurray), to draw up a life-insurance policy on her husband without his knowledge - and then kill him. The murder goes as planned, but the two lovers lose faith in each other's motives when they face suspicious claims investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), whose queries trigger a fatal game of cat and mouse.

Why I Love It:

One of the quintessential noir films, Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" is a masterpiece of stark atmosphere and carefully stylized suspense. The talented Barbara Stanwyck, a familiar face in the 1940s noir universe, assumes her role with feline deviousness, while "My Three Sons" TV dad Fred MacMurray - narrating the film via flashback - brilliantly plays against type. Raymond Chandler's screenplay sizzles with hard-boiled repartee and the great Edward G. Robinson is note-perfect as the dogged, cool, and calculating investigator. Sinister, tense, and cynical, Wilder's "Indemnity" is riveting film suspense.