…is a good movie, a classic of its kind. But I never did understand how the murderous couple thought they could get away with it, because the means by which it's done are so implausible.
Also, it's hard for me to look at Fred MacMurray and not think of Flubber.
I didn't know until today that the screenplay was by Raymond Chandler.
I saw this movie a very long time ago, so don’t remember much about it, other than Barbara Stanwyck’s terrible wig — talk about implausible!
Heh. I didn’t even think about it being a wig, but I was definitely conscious that it was a very unnatural-looking hairdo. Barbara Stanwyck really was a weakness in the movie to me. She seemed fatale enough, but not the kind of femme who could lure a man to his doom. Now if that character had been played by, say, Veronica Lake, the movie would have been more potent.
You know, now that I think about it, I believe the wig was a big part of the problem with the character.
The Fred MacMurry/Barbara Stanwyck movie that I like is Remember the Night. Very nice and hokey Christmas movie. Unfortunately they don’t have it on Netflix.
AMDG
Never seen that one. TCM just finished a Barbra Stanwyck festival, though, which is why I happened to be watching DI again. I wonder if they showed it.
I’m tempted to buy it.
AMDG
My favorite Barbara Stanwyck movie is maybe Christmas in Connecticut. As Janet said, a very nice and hokey Christmas movie. (Title seems inappropriate this year, though, doesn’t it.)
And Stanwyck wears her very own hair in it.
Wonder why they went with that silly wig in Double Indemnity? Must be a very-Hollywood back-story to that.
.is a good movie, a classic of its kind. But I never did understand how the murderous couple thought they could get away with it, because the means by which it’s done are so implausible.
By some accounts the novella from which the film was derived was inspired by the Ruth Snyder / Judd Grey case which ended with the execution of them both in 1928. If they had stuck with a lesser sort of felony, Snyder and Grey would have been candidates for the “Least Competent Criminals” feature in The Funny Times.
It does appear that they failed to think their plan all the way through. And “According to Judd Gray, Ruth had made at least seven attempts to kill her husband, all of which he survived.” Seven? That sounds like Wile E. Coyote in pursuit of Mister Magoo. Funny how real-life murders are rarely as glamorous as portrayed in the movies.
Light On Dark Water 
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