Fred MacMurray was a big movie star of the 30\u2019s, 40\u2019s, 50\u2019s who transitioned into a beloved TV father figure in his long running series My Three Sons.\u00a0 In almost all of that long and popular career he was always the kind, mild-mannered and upstanding American man.\u00a0 There were three exceptions that I can think of.\u00a0 One was a film I\u2019ve previously reviewed here, \u201cThe Caine Mutiny\u201d in which MacMurray was a manipulative naval officer who brings about a mutiny for which he escapes blame but others are court-martialed.\u00a0 Another was a movie called \u201cThe Apartment where he is a philandering corporate executive.\u00a0 And the third is the present film, Double Indemnity.\u00a0 MacMurray is insurance salesman, Walter Neff.\u00a0 Barbara Stanwyck is Phyllis Dietrichson, the wife of one of Neff\u2019s policy holders and Edward G. Robinson is Barton Keyes an insurance investigator and Neff\u2019s good friend.\u00a0 The story revolves around the plot by MacMurray and Stanwyck to murder her husband and collect on a double indemnity life insurance policy.\u00a0 The details of the murder are actually kind of ingenious and the story has plenty of interesting twists and minor characters that enliven the action.\u00a0 All in all, the production is well acted and very well written.\u00a0 In particular, Edward G Robinson\u2019s character steals the show.\u00a0 He is clever, likeable and provides the moral anchor against which we can weigh the evil being perpetrated by MacMurray and Stanwyck.<\/p>\n
The only real problem with the movie is that MacMurray\u2019s character is supposed to be a fast talking, wise cracking, hard boiled character.\u00a0 He\u2019s supposed to be the kind of character that George Raft or Humphrey Bogart might have played.\u00a0 But he\u2019s Fred MacMurray.\u00a0 So, every time he calls Barbara Stanwyck, \u201cbaby,\u201d which by the way he seems to do about a hundred times, all I can think of is him playing absent minded Prof. Ned Brainard in Disney\u2019s movie the \u201cSon of Flubber.\u201d\u00a0 It just doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 He\u2019s too nice a guy to believe as a cold-blooded murderer.<\/p>\n
The other hiccough in the plot is the scene where MacMurray and Stanwyck fall out.\u00a0 At one point, Stanwyck abandons here cold-blooded behavior with an altruistic explanation that must have been based on a Hayes Code requirement but just doesn\u2019t make any theatrical sense.<\/p>\n
These two considerations aside the movie is an entertaining story with an engaging plot and good acting by both the primary and secondary characters.\u00a0 Even with my reservations about MacMurray\u2019s believability as bad guy I can still see this movie over and over and still enjoy it.\u00a0 The secret I believe is Edward G Robinson.\u00a0 His character allows us to side with the forces of rationality when they intervene and subdue the chaotic outbreak that Neff and Dietrichson unleash with their clever plan.\u00a0 And Robinson gets to hammer home his side of the story in the final scene where he confronts his murderous friend and tells him how it all will end.\u00a0 The only accommodation he makes to their old friendship is lighting a match for Neff when he is too weak to light his own cigarette.\u00a0 And in a 1940\u2019s movie, if you can\u2019t even light your own cigarette you know you\u2019re as good as dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fred MacMurray was a big movie star of the 30\u2019s, 40\u2019s, 50\u2019s who transitioned into a beloved TV father figure in his long running series<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[1466,1467,1464,1465,191],"class_list":["post-5139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-barbara-stanwyck","tag-double-indemnity","tag-edward-g-robinson","tag-fred-macmurray","tag-ocf-classic-movie-review"],"yoast_head":"\n