Double Indemnity

(Paramount Pictures, 1944)

Fred MacMurray
Barbara Stanwyck
Edward G. Robinson







Double Indemnity was directed by Billy Wilder and adapted by Wilder and Raymond Chandler from the novella of the same title by James M. Cain which first appeared in 1935 as an abridged 8-part serial in Liberty magazine.

The story was based on a 1927 crime perpetrated by a married Queens woman and her lover. Ruth Snyder persuaded her boyfriend, Judd Gray, to kill her husband Albert after having her spouse take out a big insurance policy—with a double-indemnity clause. The murderers were quickly identified and arrested.

Double indemnity refers to a clause in certain life insurance policies where the insuring company agrees to pay twice the standard amount in cases of accidental death.