Hitchcock was never like this. Given a plot and a cast as good as this picture offers, the rotund master of mystery would have turned out a film to tingle the spines of audiences in every corner of the globe, but Hitchcock did not direct this one and it shows it. Even luscious Barbara Stanwyck, a new and surprisingly good Fred MacMurray, and Edward G. Robinson at his best fail to save "Double Indemnity" from the bottomloss list of Hollywood's fumbled chances.

The plot is unusual and clever. It concerns a life insurance salesman, Walter Neff, played by MacMurray, who sees a chance to beat his own company, get rich quick, and marry a beautiful woman--and all for the simple price of murder. This opportunity is presented to Neff by one of his clients, a Mrs. Dietrichson (Miss Stanwyck), who wants to buy life insurance for her husband and then make certain that it gets used pronto. The wily Miss Dietrichson uses Neff to get rid of her spouse in a railroad "accident" that pays her double indemnity as the beneficiary.

Edward G. Robinson, playing the part of an insurance claims investigator, a Mr. Keyes, now appears on the scene and stirs the plot into a boil. Events follow each other in rapid succession, and before the audience knows it the picture is at an end--and a conclusion, may we say, that is exceptionally trite and uninteresting.

With excellent performances being turned in by all parties, the director could--and should--have brought out the contrasting natures of the principal characters.

Suspense is what could have made this picture a great one, and a lack of it is just what makes "Double Indemnity" a distinctly mediocre film. At the very start one learns the eventual outcome from the rather clumsy method of having Neff, wounded by a bullet from Mrs. Dietrichson's gun, dictate the whole tale to a dictaphone. This flashback technique under the hands of an expert might have been fashioned into a really good flesh-creeper, but instead it merely produces a rather average film with emphasis on plot.