Category: Barbara Stanwyck
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Off the Hook: A bedridden heiress glimpses the face of doom in ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’
Barbara Stanwyck, ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’ (1948). Crossed phone lines deliver chilling news to a woman stranded in her apartment. Post war prosperity, women’s position in society go under the microscope Contains some spoilers By Paul Parcellin ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’ (1948) Barbara Stanwyck plays Leona Stevenson, a woman distinctly different from cold blooded Phyllis Dietrichson, whom…
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Could You Repeat That? — 36 Noirs That Unfold In Flashbacks
Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, “Double Indemnity” (1944). They pop up in all kinds of movies and TV shows, but flashbacks are the stuff that films noir are made of By Paul Parcellin Is that film you’re watching a noir? Here’s one semi-reliable way to tell: Look for flashbacks. In noir, flashbacks show us the stuff…
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Is It or Isn’t It? “Clash by Night” is a Gripping Drama, Alright, But Some Insist It Doesn’t Make the Cut as an Authentic Noir Because It Lacks One Crucial Element
Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, “Clash by Night” (1952). Contains Spoilers By Paul Parcellin “Clash by Night” has the look and feel of noir, but not everyone thinks of it that way. It stars Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan, two giants of the shadowy crime dramas of the 1940s and ‘50s that define those…
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Two Couples Who Murder: “Double Indemnity” Faces Off Against “Body Heat” — And It’s Not Even Close
Left, Kathleen Turner, William Hurt, “Body Heat” (1981). Right, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, “Double Indemnity” (1944). Warning: Contains Spoilers By Paul Parcellin After I moved to L.A. in 2008, I got together with a Meetup group that was going to see a screening of “Double Indemnity” (1944) at the ArcLight Theater in Hollywood. I was…
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Ripped From the Headlines: True Crimes Explode onto the Screen in Noir Movies
Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, “Double Indemnity” (1944) By Paul Parcellin It’s no wonder that Hollywood in the 1940s and ’50s scooped up lurid true crime stories and made hard-hitting, gritty dramas out of them. Following the war, the public’s appetite for rough textured tales could not be surpassed. Cold, savage murders that bled off the…
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‘Double Indemnity’: Two On a Conveyor Belt Toward Doom
Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944). This article contains many SPOILERS, so if you haven’t seen the film yet be forewarned. By Paul Parcellin In “Double Indemnity” (1944), housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) seduces insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and gets him to kill her husband. She’s after a big payout from…
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Out of the Shadows (and onto the Cathode Ray Tube)
Raymond Burr in ‘Pitfall’ (1948). Film noir heavies and second bananas of the 1940s got respectable in the late ‘50s and ‘60s when they morphed into TV doctors, lawyers and sitcom moms and pops. But could they ever wash the stage blood off their hands? You mean Mom and Pop were once arch criminals? Jeepers!…
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In ‘Double Indemnity,’ A Stalled Car is a Flash of Genius
Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, in ‘Double Indemnity.’ As many times as we pore over “Double Indemnity,” there are still important bits that may be missed. Sometimes that leads to revelations that change our understanding of the film. I’m not talking about the Raymond Chandler cameo that went unnoticed for decades — that was a…