#25 Golden Age of Hollywood Series
If you’re a baby boomer, when you think of Barbara Stanwyck, you think of The Big Valley, which ran for four seasons in the late sixties. Stanwyck played Victoria Barkley, the tough matriarch who ruled the Barkley family in the wilds of 1870’s California.
But if you’re a film buff, you think of a cheap blonde wig and an ankle bracelet that seduced Fred MacMurray into murder.
You think of Double Indemnity.
Stanwyck plays Phyllis Dietrichson, the fatalist femme in film noir.
Stanwyck had made her career playing hard-boiled dames with soft centers, and Fred MacMurray was the affable everyman who ceded the spotlight to his female co-stars.
Neither Stanwyck nor MacMurray had ever played characters as rotten as Phyllis Dietrichson and Walter Neff, the lethal housewife and willing insurance salesman who plot to murder Phyllis’ husband and abscond with the insurance money.
The results are electric.
Walter burns for Phyllis with a combustible mix of lust and greed that ultimately sours to revulsion.
And Phyllis? She’s one cold fish from wire to wire.
To satisfy the production code, Walter Neff murders Mr. Dietrichson off-screen. Instead we see only a close up of Stanwyck as Phyllis. She doesn’t watch the murder of her husband inches away, but stares straight ahead with a look of almost sexual satisfaction that will make your blood run cold.
Things go wrong, of course. Walter’s murder isn’t as perfect as he believes, and he’s dogged by his conscience and a suspicious insurance claims man.
Phyllis and Walter soon wish to be rid of one another, but the murder between them binds them tighter than lust or money.
Events spiral out of control with consequences lethal to more than just Mr. Dietrichson.
Double Indemnity is number 29 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Greatest Movies. It’s on every list of the greatest film noirs, often in the top spot.
It’s a classic about the rotten core of humanity, and the whole film orbits around Stanwyck’s performance.
And still she didn’t win the Best Actress Oscar. Once again she competed in a stacked field and lost to Ingrid Bergman for her performance in Gaslight.
Two women at the top of their game—it’s a shame one of them had to lose.
But as we’ll see next week, Stanwyck had one more chance at the golden statuette, and it all begins with a late night phone call.
Want more? Click here for an index of all posts in this series, as well as source notes and suggested reading.
“If you’re a baby boomer, when you think of Barbara Stanwyck, you think of The Big Valley, which ran for four seasons in the late sixties…But if you’re a film buff, you think of a cheap blonde wig and an ankle bracelet that seduced Fred MacMurray into murder.”
And if you are a Gen X (like myself), when you think of Stanwyck, you think of The Thorn Birds… she’s the best thing about the minisiries! 🙂
She’s great in the Thorn Birds….I truly don’t see how that part could’ve been played any better. I actually first saw Stanwyck here in Double Indemnity. Then I watched Stella Dallas, and I was totally hooked.