Double Indemnity – About the Film 

Double Indemnity (1944) is regarded by many as the finest ever example of what became known as Film Noir. Consider some of the challengers for that title… The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon (both shown at previous Classic Movie Nights) and you’ll get an idea of just how great a film we have here.

Barbara Stanwyck excels as the femme fatale and, as she did in pretty much everything she appeared in, threatens to steal the picture. It’s Fred MacMurray, though, as doomed insurance salesman Walter Neff, who we live and breathe this movie through. We saw MacMurray as the philandering business head in The Apartment at a previous movie night, but he was more usually cast as an affable ‘everyman’ who later in his career became a Disney favourite. There’s nothing ‘Disney’ about him in Double Indemnity, where his self-made assurance is shaken to the core through his love and lust for a woman.

Oh, and did I mention that Edward G. Robinson, one of the screen’s finest ever actors, is in it too? His name alone should be all the encouragement you need to book for this film. The great Billy Wilder directs and Raymond Chandler contributes to the screenplay for a movie that has a plot and dialogue to die for    –which, in fact, quite a few people in this movie do.

The details about the showing 

If you’ve never been to one of these movie nights, you really don’t know what you’re missing. (Well, one of these movie nights, I guess!) They are almost always a sell-out so booking is essential. Please ring the Old Saw Mill on 01260 277658 if you’d like to come. Doors will open at 5.30 pm. The excellent pie, peas and mashed potatoes supper is served at 6.00 pm followed by my introduction to the film and then the showing of the movie. Cost is £10 for non-members of the OSM and £8 for members.

Hope to see you all there 🙂