This is a classic movie that is made by its story. It has a great deep murder-plot, with normal characters being put in not so normal circumstances. Within its genre this is simply one fine movie, that with all of its ingredients embodies the crime/film-noir genre of the '40's.
Like all of these movies it begins all rather simple, with a good thought out murder-plot but of course soon things start to go from bad to worse. This is what I like mostly about this type of movies. Characterers change throughout the movie and the plot thickens fast. It's really a movie that gets better by the minute and besides also features plenty of nice twists and developments. A real fine constructed movie.
It's of course also being made great by it's atmosphere, that I don't consider typically film-noir like, cinematography and directing by Billy Wilder, who handled a lot of different genres successfully throughout his career, film-noir being just one of them. He also helped to write the screenplay for this movie. His directing and writing both earned him an Oscar nomination for this movie. The movie got nominated for a total of 7 Oscar's, including best picture but it won none however. Nevertheless the movie has grown out to be more of a classic than the movies that did won an Oscar over "Double Indemnity" that year.
Fred MacMurray isn't really the best known actor but he suits his role in this movie just fine. He really fits in well within the genre. I wasn't too happy about Barbara Stanwyck though, who has played far better roles throughout her career. She also looked quite ridicules with her blond wig. Ironically enough she still got nominated for an Oscar for her role in this movie. It was great to see Edward G. Robinson in this. It was the first time ever he appeared in a film-noir and prior to this he was mostly known for his tough roles in gangster-movies.
A must-see for the fans of the genre.
9/10
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