Double Indemnity (Gene Shalit's Critic's Choice Edition)

From the moment they met, it was murder. When an insurance man with commission on his mind meets a suburban blond with murder in her heart, it's lust at first sight. Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray conspire to trick her husband into signing a policy that pays double for accidental death—then push him from a train without leaving tracks. It's a perfect crime until their claim goes to Edward G. Robinson, an insurance investigator who puts a premium on not being swindled. He won't be railroaded into paying until he's sure. And he's a long way from sure. It's all too neat. Too perfect. Something troubles him. He becomes obsessed with the case, trying to find the flaw, stalking the couple, waiting for just one slip. Director Billy Wilder wrote the script with Raymond Chandler from James M. Cain's whiplash novel, and Ms. Stanwyck won an Academy Award nomination. Double Indemnity is a movie so malicious, so satisfying, that it has become one of Hollywood’s all-time best suspense thrillers.