The murder goes as planned, but after the couple's passion cools, each becomes suspicious of the other's motives. Told in flashbacks from Neff's perspective, the film moves with ruthless determinism as each character meets what seems to be a preordained fate. Movie veterans Stanwyck, MacMurray, and Robinson give some of their best performances, and Wilder's cynical sensibility finds a perfect match in the story's unsentimental perspective, heightened by John Seitz's hard-edged cinematography.
Double Indemnity ranks with the classics of mainstream Hollywood movie-making.
James M. Cain transformed that tale about a man committing deeds he is supposed to prevent into Double Indemnity , a novel about an insurance salesman who uses his inside to knowledge to defraud his bosses. Neff then finds out she just happens to be a littler smarter and a little rottener than he had had figured. It turns out he should have wondered a little harder. However, they fail to count on Edward G. Robinson as Barton Keyes, an insurance investigator who just happens to be MacMurray's best friend. The film is a noir classic whose wide influence can be seen in films like Oliver Stone's U-Turn and in almost every Columbo mystery Peter Falk ever made.