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Select media
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Film details
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Featuring
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Director
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Country
USA
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Year
1944
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Genres
Film noir Crime
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Type
Film
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Category
Fiction
Introduction
“Double Indemnity, one of the highest summits of film noir, is a film without a single trace of pity or love. The script is as tart as a lemon.”
Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg, Hollywood in the Forties, 1968
Double Indemnity was one of the original handful of cynical American thrillers which, when released en masse in France after the war, gave rise to the term film noir. This shady cycle often featured treacherous women (femmes fatales) duping guileless men. Few of these were more alluring than Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), who ensnares policy salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in her scheme to do away with her husband and claim the insurance payout.
Adapted from a James M. Cain story by émigré Billy Wilder and novelist Raymond Chandler, and told within a clever flashback structure as Neff leaves a taped confession for his wily colleague Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), the film is a wellspring of the noir style, with John F. Seitz’s cinematography a textbook in angles and shadow.
Cain’s work was the basis for two subsequent classics of 1940s noir: Mildred Pierce (1945) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).
Cast & Credits
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Cast
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Walter Neff
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Phyllis Dietrichson
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Barton Keyes
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Mr Jackson
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Lola Dietrichson
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Mr Dietrichson
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Nino Zachette
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Mr Norton
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Sam Gorlopis
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Joe Peters
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[secretary]
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[conductor]
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[red cap]
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[Pullman porter]
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[Pullman porter]
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[Pullman porter]
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[Pullman porter]
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[Mattie, maid]
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[Pullman conductor]
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[train conductor]
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[garage attendant]
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[Pacific All-Risk telephone operator]
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[Keyes' secretary]
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[.]
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[.]
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[.]
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[man reading novel]
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Credits
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Direction:
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Director
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[Dialogue Director]
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[Assistant Director]
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[Assistant Director (2nd)]
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[Screenplay Clerk]
Rights:
Production:
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Production Company
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[Executive Producer]
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[Producer]
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[Production Manager]
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[Assistant Production Manager]
Casting:
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[Casting]
Writing:
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Screenplay
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Screenplay
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Based on the novel by
Photography:
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Director of Photography
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[2nd Camera]
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[2nd Camera]
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[Electrician]
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[Cableman]
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[Grip]
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[Mike Grip]
Stills:
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[Stills]
Special Effects:
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Process Photography
Editing:
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Editorial Supervision
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[Assistant Cutter]
Design:
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Art Director
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Art Director
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Set Decorator
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[Stage Engineer]
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[Props]
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[Props]
Costumes:
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Costumes
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Wardrobe
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Wardrobe
Make-up:
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Make-up Artist
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[Make-up]
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[Hair]
Music:
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Music Score
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"Symphony in D Minor" by
Sound:
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Sound Recording
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Sound Recording
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[Sound Recording]
Stunts:
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[Stand-in for Barbara Stanwyck]
Publicity:
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[Publicity]
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The Greatest Films of All Time 2012
Voted for by 6 critics and 1 director.