charlytully Review of Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity (1973 TV Movie)

Shoot the postman if he tries to ring twice!!!

[5/10 · 5 May 2009]

I have it on good authority that James M. Cain turned over in his grave when this haphazard rendering of his novella DOUBLE INDEMNITY emanated from the boob tube in the early 1970s. (Seriously, he was 81, and kicked the bucket four years later.) Be that as it may, if you watch both the original and a remake from decades later for the first time because the film studio is making more money on a deluxe DVD set than it would by packaging the original alone, it usually turns out to be a case of a defendant providing the rope with which they should be hoisted up, figuratively speaking. Crass Universal Studios took an earlier effort nominated for seven Oscars, which largely created the genre of film noir, and de-noired it in a sloppy adaptation they probably hoped people would skip to focus on the commercials. Almost every character name and line from the original was retained, no matter how anachronistic. But most of the TV cast is so third-rate that when they change the name of Lola's boyfriend from Nino Zachetti (beyond their powers of pronunciation) to Donny Franklin, airhead Kathleen Cody (as Lola) calls him "Johnny" when he's first introduced. Key lines of dialog are chopped in half, to fit in more TV ads. And Billy Goldenberg's musical score would be more suitable for a situation comedy. Even if this were the first adaptation of Cain's story, it would not come within a hundred miles of an Emmy nomination.