Double Indemnity (1944)
Directed by Billy Wilder
An insurance representative is seduced by a dissatisfied housewife into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, a claims investigator.
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What critics compared Double Indemnity to
Adapted by Jessica Sharzer (Nerve) from Darcey Bell’s 2017 novel, A Simple Favor pulls from a plethora of sources — Gone Girl, Rebecca, Gaslight, Double Indemnity, Diabolique — some of which the screenplay literally name-checks; it’s less homage or even pastiche than a bargain-basement mash-up of various superior inspirations.
Like Fred MacMurray’s weak-kneed patsy in “ Double Indemnity ,” Emily is thunderstruck by one of those noir blondes who could easily prove fatal.
If Double Indemnity were a hangout movie, this would be its sequel.
“A Simple Favor” is a sort of collage, featuring thematic snippets from “L’Avventura,” “Vertigo,” and “Double Indemnity,” set in the updated turf of Douglas Sirk, in an archetypal suburb that’s decorated in the catchy bright colors of the Hollywood sixties.
The movie is very light on dialogue, and many of the words that are spoken come across as if the characters are imitating movie actors (the film opens with Laure watching " Double Indemnity "--for pointers in how to be a vixen, no doubt).
She's lying on her bed, in her panties, with her back to the camera, watching Double Indemnity on TV.
The film begins with Double Indemnity on television.
It's a scene from Billy Wilder's film noir classic "Double Indemnity," and born-to-be-bad Barbara Stanwyck is coming clean to her patsy, Fred MacMurray.
>From Romijm-Stamos' reflection on a television screen showing "Double Indemnity" to a Rashomon-like restaging of the film's climax, DePalma's "Femme Fatale" is drenched in filmic duality.
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos plays a thief named Laure â the first time we see her, sheâs watching Barbara Stanwyckâs evil seductress in the classic film noir "Double Indemnity."
Penélope Cruz (whose costumes, designed by Sandy Powell, nod to Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity)…
…al film noir (Pacto de sangre / Double Indemnity)…
…dresses like Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity.”
Based on Tracy Letts’ play and directed by William Friedkin—the same team that produced the unhinged melodrama Bug five years ago—Killer Joe updates Double Indemnity for the trailer-park set, which means bypassing clever entendre in favor of straight-up venality and sleaze.
Before you can spot the noir inspirations (“Double Indemnity,” “The Killer Inside Me,” many more), things have gone very very bad for Chris and his clan (how the plan unravels is a true work of noir genius on Letts’ part, including a “duh” twist that I didn’t even see coming).
Yet Letts and director William Friedkin (“The Exorcist”), constructing a story that sometimes recalls “Double Indemnity” or just drunk Hitchcock, indulge the sleaze without much concern for the unconvincingly self-aware people or their relationships.
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Controversial director Oliver Stone is back and supposedly returning to his roots with a smallish, lower-budget, darkly comic rural melodrama (which combines elements of "Red Rock West," "Double Indemnity," "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and a number of other film noir thrillers).
But viewers will also recognize echoes of original noirs, including Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice and even David O. Selznick's lust-in-the-dust Western Duel in the Sun.
Opening with a captivating prologue, "In the Mouth of Madness" gets off to a decidedly film noirish start with Neill cast as a crack insurance investigator, a cynical guy De Luca has compared to Fred MacMurray's character in "Double Indemnity."
She's a combination of Goneril, Regan, and Lady Macbeth, with a little bit of Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson from ''Double Indemnity.''
A cautionary tale for horny saps of the sort who populate "Double Indemnity" and "Body Heat," the movie centers on the double-crossing machinations of Bridget Gregory (Fiorentino).
In John Dahl's "The Last Seduction," a post-"Double Indemnity" drama full of plot twists, double-crossings, sexual gyrations and dark pronouncements, Linda Fiorentino persuades her husband Bill Pullman and a ruthless loan shark to finance a drug deal, then skips town with the $700,000.
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La lectura que hace Robert Mitchell de Los Ángeles es absolutamente cinematográfica: una mezcla de lo que se recuerda en el noir de Chandler interpretado por Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, 1944) y Howard Hawks (The Big Sleep, 1946); mucho del Hitchcock de los años cincuenta (Rear Window, 1954 y Vertigo, 1958) mediado por la ciudad de David Lynch en el neo-noir de Mulholland Drive (2001); algo de Pynchon interpretado por Paul Thomas Anderson en Inherent Vice (2014); otra pizca más del humor negro de los hermanos Coen en Barton Fink (1991) con mucho de The Big Lebowski (1998); y, finalmente, la locura indecente de Hollywood representada por los dos extremos incoherentes de The Day of the Locust (1975) y Map to the Stars (2014).
He may even call himself an “old soul” because he watched some really obscure film called Double Indemnity in a cinema class.
Rosamund Pike’s performance as Any Dunne is remarkable, and she dons one of the most convincing villainous roles since Barbara Stanwyck of “Double Indemnity.”
As well, there are recognizable tropes from film-noir classics (Laura, Double Indemnity) that movie journalist Nick should pick up on.
It hints at a lineage of noir-ish thrillers from Double Indemnity to Presumed Innocent with a shot of Patricia Highsmith for good measure, while being as knowingly and carelessly contemporary as Twitter and the iPhone 6 (Fincher, after all, directed both Seven and The Social Network ).