This is a bizarre love story, if there ever was one.
Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is an insurance salesman and is great at his job. He's unstoppable, until he falls in love with the femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrickson (Barbara Stanwyck). Her husband's insurance policy has lapsed which is illegal, by the way.
He falls in love with her so quickly, after just three short meetings, they are already planning on murdering her husband, the stuffy and sometimes abusive unnamed Mr. Diedrickson (Tom Powers). Instead of just tossing him off the train, they kill him beforehand to make it look like an accident so they will collect a large sum.
Too bad Walter's experienced colleague Keyes (the great Edward G. Robinson) suspects something is up and investigates.
This murder drives the couple apart, not together. Sure, they don't get away with it and another murder is committed before the movie ends.
While the film is clearly dated, and the dialogue seems to staged and rehearsed, the film is still brilliant at getting into the heads of the three main characters and how both of them thought killing him would solve their unhappiness. But it makes everything worse.
Despite having said all of that, the film is a classic for a reason and is not to be missed. What with the brilliant performances and tight script, this film is nothing short of a masterpiece. Grade: A
Side Notes:
-Why on God's green Earth is Fred MacMurray wearing a wedding ring throughout the film, when his character is clearly a bachelor? A mistake like that is insulting.
-I do also hate that Walter usually calls Phyllis baby, again, that's insulting to her.
-Did Phyllis murder the first Mrs. Dietrickson?
-While it is sweet that Walter sends Lola Dietrickson's (Jean Heather's) crush back to her, he is a loser in his own right.
-How times have changed. You can longer smoke in buildings just like that. Smoking is also a motif throughout the film.
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