Based on the James M. Cain novel, Wilder's Double Indemnity is, in critic Andrew Sarris's words, "the juiciest and most adult of noir movie classics." Barbara Stanwyck, as the cunning Phyllis Dietrichson, is the archetypal femme fatale: an irresistibly attractive peroxide blonde with a temperature of thirty below. When breezy insurance salesman Walter Neff, the noir Everyman played by Fred MacMurray, falls for Dietrichson, he turns into a coldblooded killer, fueled by an obsession that becomes increasingly debilitating. Double Indemnity is a film steeped in shadowy ambiguities. Dietrichson is impossible not to admire for the flawless panache with which she executes her schemes, yet her surface perfection is chillingly repellent. Even after Neff falls out of love, Wilder never stops admiring his stunningly evil heroine and her eerie elusive manner as she guides Neff on an inevitable course of doom.-Lisanne Skyler