Double Indemnity

Screened on the 100th anniversary of Fred MacMurray's birth, this dark and deliciously cynical film noir belongs on anyone's shortlist of Hollywood's greatest. MacMurray is an insurance agent drawn into a scheme of fraud and murder by sultry femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck, but his mentor Edward G. Robinson is on their scent. Director Billy Wilder collaborated with Raymond Chandler on the dialogue-rich screenplay, based on the novel by James M. Cain. Camera: John Seitz. Music: Miklós Rózsa. (US 1944) 107 min.

Fred MacMurray 100th Birthday Salute

Saturday, August 30 marks the 100th birthday of talented actor Fred MacMurray, and this very weekend we honor his memory with two of his best films, both co-starring Barbara Stanwyck (with whom he made four films in all). Before he broke into the movies in the mid-1930s, MacMurray toured vaudeville houses and nightclubs as a crooner and musician. Some audiences are most familiar with his later career, when he became everybody's favorite TV dad in the show My Three Sons and enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration with Walt Disney in family comedies. Our sampling of his career offers two early classics.