S.W.’s Scores
Continuity
+6
Entertainment
+5
Rewatchability
+4
CastFred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
StreamingParamount+, Prime Video (rent)
S.W.’s Verdict
An insurance salesman helps a woman murder her husband for the payout. He narrates the whole thing into a dictaphone knowing exactly where it went wrong. Barbara Stanwyck is lethal. Fred MacMurray plays a smart man who knows he's being stupid and does it anyway. Billy Wilder wrote dialogue that cuts like glass. This is the film noir that all other film noirs are measured against, and most of them lose.