I first saw this film when I was discovering classic film as a teenager. Black-and-white films were a new language for me. The second time I saw it as a college student watching the film for a film course, I had a greater appreciation for Barbara Stanwyck's gift with delivering sharp dialogue and Billy Wilder's ability to write it.
In my most recent viewing over 15 years later, I have come to realize that this is a perfect film. The story is a classic morality tale of a man (Fred MacMurray) driven to commit the perfect murder by vanity (thinking that as an insurance insider he could fool the system), love, wealth, and who knows what else is going on through his head. Likewise, his lover (Barbara Stanwyck) Phyllis is such an enigma that she enters unreliable narrator territory and viewers can debate how truthful she was about her feelings until the end of time.
The third element of this relationship triangle (although, it's platonic) is the brilliant Edward G Robinson as the insurance investigator who acts as Neff's moral center and close friend. It's the kind of meaningful platonic relation between two men that one rarely sees in movies as the two act as doppelgangers to one another.
Although Maltese Falcon came first, this might be called the first true noir film. With Billy Wilder's visual mastery and knack for witty dialogue, the film incorporates a lot of trademarks like scenes lit for night, hard-drinking anti-heroes, and stories told in flashback narration.
More than that it's an economically told and fun movie with a tremendous number of choice lines.
In my most recent viewing over 15 years later, I have come to realize that this is a perfect film. The story is a classic morality tale of a man (Fred MacMurray) driven to commit the perfect murder by vanity (thinking that as an insurance insider he could fool the system), love, wealth, and who knows what else is going on through his head. Likewise, his lover (Barbara Stanwyck) Phyllis is such an enigma that she enters unreliable narrator territory and viewers can debate how truthful she was about her feelings until the end of time.
The third element of this relationship triangle (although, it's platonic) is the brilliant Edward G Robinson as the insurance investigator who acts as Neff's moral center and close friend. It's the kind of meaningful platonic relation between two men that one rarely sees in movies as the two act as doppelgangers to one another.
Although Maltese Falcon came first, this might be called the first true noir film. With Billy Wilder's visual mastery and knack for witty dialogue, the film incorporates a lot of trademarks like scenes lit for night, hard-drinking anti-heroes, and stories told in flashback narration.
More than that it's an economically told and fun movie with a tremendous number of choice lines.