`Double Indemnity' Gets Even Darker; Smoking Satire: New DVDs

Review by Peter Rainer

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- I'm often asked to name my favorite desert-island movie. If I'm in a film-noir state of mind, my answer is always ``Double Indemnity.''

The new two-disc reissue of Billy Wilder's 1944 classic is much better than the blurry edition brought out in 1998. Now we can witness depravity in all its glinting shades of black.

James M. Cain's novel was scripted by Raymond Chandler -- you can't ask for a better noir combo than that. Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson is the premier black widow of movies. As Walter Neff, the insurance salesman who gets caught in her web of fraud and deceit, Fred MacMurray is the ultimate patsy. He's a goner the minute Phyllis uncoils her legs and turns on her high beams.

The third great participant in this masterpiece is Edward G. Robinson as Walter's boss and friend Barton Keyes. Robinson was never better. This waddling, cigar-chomping know-it-all is stymied by the scam. Something doesn't add up about the strange way that Phyllis's husband died but he can't explain why. Friendship has blinded him.

The dialogue is so hard-edged that you could cut diamonds with it and no film has better evoked the pulpy corruptions of Los Angeles after dark. The Production Code in force at the time kept things relatively chaste but, as was also the case with John Garfield and Lana Turner in ``The Postman Always Rings Twice,'' the absence of overt sexuality makes everything sexier.

The extras on the first disc include an excellent documentary on the movie and several commentaries by film historians. The second disc is a mediocre 1973 made-for-television movie of ``Double Indemnity'' starring Richard Crenna, Samantha Eggar and Lee J. Cobb.

Crenna appeared eight years later in ``Body Heat,'' which was clearly inspired by Wilder's movie. (Universal, $26.98.)

`Thank You for Smoking'

Aaron Eckhart is highly entertaining as a spin doctor extraordinaire for Big Tobacco in this uneven adaptation of Chris Buckley's satirical novel. Eckhart's riffs are so venal and convoluted that one suspects they were lifted unaltered from actual tobacco lobbyists.

First-time director Jason Reitman (son of Ivan, who did ``Ghostbusters'') doesn't really have the chops for a full-scale black comedy, which is what ``Thank You for Smoking'' should have been. But when Eckhart is flying high, you get a whiff of how good this film could have been.

Extras include deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, and a segment of ``The Charlie Rose Show'' with Eckhart, Reitman and Buckley. (Fox, $29.98.)

To contact the writer on this story: Peter Rainer at Fi1L2E@aol.com.

Last Updated: October 18, 2006 00:11 EDT

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