Sometimes murder can smell like honeysuckle..

Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder, 1944

Surely the best film noir ever made, Double Indemnity is – if I daresay myself – a masterpiece of the genre.

 Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck 

You want a cold-hearted femme fatale, you’ve got it; an audaciously likeable man falling for the nasty temptress; dimly lit lounge rooms filled with cigarette smoke and the stretching shadows from the Californian sun outside the venetian blinds; a plot involving desire, murder and insurance fraud for the sake of a seductive (and very well dressed and made-up) woman – it’s all there for you in Double Indemnity.

And with a director like Billy Wilder who co-wrote the script with Raymond Chandler (from a story by James M. Cain), there was no way the film could ever fail.

Stanwyck, MacMurray and Edward G. Robertson in the best shot of the film

So many film noir conventions are utilised by Billy Wilder in the film – the character types, low-key lighting, voice-over narration and of course the plot themes – and Double Indemnity was a perfect introductory film into the genre when I first saw it at uni 4 years ago.

I bought the DVD last week and had so much pleasure watching this classic crime drama again.

The sets! The costumes! The music! The era when people didn't know that smoking was killing them!