Raymond Chandler's reworking of a James M. Cain pulp novel wallows in the stench coming from the honeysuckle streets of nouveau riche Los Angeles. Fred MacMurray is almost too convincing as an American Everydope, a life insurance salesman for Pacific All-Risk who one day stumbles down California's version of a dark alley: up a sunny Los Feliz street, where a towel-clad Barbara Stanwyck has just finished tanning, and just started scheming. With Stanwyck's fetching ankle bracelet and cheap Ensenada perfume providing an extra definition of all-risk, it's lust at first sight; soon our murderous heroes are plotting to off Stanwyck's lawful husband, though MacMurray's surrogate one, suspicious insurance honcho Edward G. Robinson, may outwit them yet. Wilder convinced the studio to visualize Chandler's love for Los Angeles's bright sleaze by shooting on location-Jerry's Market on Melrose Avenue, a Los Feliz home (“Spanish craperoo”–style, as Wilder said); also train tracks and a nocturnal panic drive through downtown-leaving a very nasty stain on those streets of sun.