Double Indemnety-review

Billy Wilder director and writer of the movie Double Indemnity, He worked into films as a screenwriter in 1929, and wrote scripts for many German films until Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Then he emerged to the U.S. His experience with German movies gave his American “German expression”, which gave his movie Double Indemnity disreputable character. The main prominent in Double Indemnity are Fred MacMurray as the insurance company agent, Barbara Stanwyck as the femme fatal, and Edward G. Robinson as the insurance company detective. The movie took a place in the 1940, and the genre of movie could be more than one and they are Crime, Drama and Film Noir (black & white movie) which mostly everyone in the movie corrupted and dishonest.

The story started with the prominent MacMurray, he insurance company agent, entering his work building and he did not look well. He recorded himself convincing murder a person, and then he told how the story started. His story started when he wanted to visit a client to sign an insurance paper, but he found the wife instead. The wife is the femme fatal and she talked to the insurance company agent and gave him hint about killing her husband. They planned to kill the husband and hide the evidence from the company insurance detective.  

One magnificent aspect of the movie is that the narrative and flashback. The movie started in the last scene and the prominent star Fred MacMurray started telling his story from the beginning, how he met the femme fatale and how they together planned to kill her husband and claim the life insurance money.

Other aspects of the movie are lighting and camera angel. The lighting used is low key, dark and have high contrast, the reason for that to show the movie realistic. The Dutch angle used a lot in the movie and corner angle, the reason of that is to show the world is corrupted.

Overall, this movie could be hard to follow because of the plot structure. The structure somehow could not be clear for the viewer because it is different plot structure than the normal structure that other movie had. But I found that a master piece could not be done in movies today. Not necessary because of its story, but because of the cinematography, lighting, and the way the story itself told.