''Double Indemnity'' is a 1973 American made-for-television crime film directed by Jack Smight and starring

Richard Crenna Richard Donald Crenna (November 30, 1926 – January 17, 2003) was an American film, television and radio actor. Crenna starred in such motion pictures as '' The Sand Pebbles'', ''Wait Until Dark'', ''Un Flic'', '' Body Heat'', the first three ...

Lee J. Cobb Lee J. Cobb (born Leo Jacoby; December 8, 1911February 11, 1976) was an American actor, known both for film roles and his work on the Broadway stage. He often played arrogant, intimidating and abrasive characters, but he also acted as respectabl ...

, Robert Webber and

Samantha Eggar Victoria Louise Samantha Marie Elizabeth Therese Eggar (born 5 March 1939) is a retired British-American actress. After beginning her career in Shakespearean theatre she rose to fame for her performance in William Wyler's thriller '' The Collec ...

. It was a remake of '' Double Indemnity'' (1944) based on the film rather than the original novel.

Plot

A scheming wife lures an insurance salesman into helping murder her husband and then declare it an accident. The salesman's boss, not knowing his man is involved in it, suspects murder and sets out to prove it.

Cast

as Walter Neff *

as Barton Keyes * Robert Webber as Edward Norton *

Phyllis Dietrichson Phyllis Dietrichson (Phyllis Nirdlinger, in the book) is a fictional character in the book and two film adaptations of James M. Cain's novella ''Double Indemnity''. For the 1944 film of the same name, Barbara Stanwyck was nominated for the Acade ...

Arch Johnson Archibald Winchester "Arch" Johnson (March 14, 1922 – October 9, 1997) was an American actor who appeared on Broadway and in more than 100 television programs. Early years Archibald Winchester Johnson was born in Minnesota in 1922. He served ...

as Dietrickson * Kathleen Cody as Lola Dietrickson * John Fiedler as Mr. Jackson * John Elerick as Donald Franklin *

Joan Pringle Joan Pringle (born June 2, 1945) is an American actress known for her roles on ''General Hospital'' (1963), '' The White Shadow'' (1978), and ''Original Sin'' (2001). One of her best-known roles was that of vice principal (and subsequently princi ...

as Neff's Secretary *

Gene Dynarski Eugene "Gene" Dynarski (September 13, 1933 – February 27, 2020) was an American actor. Three of the most popular projects that he has been involved with were two Steven Spielberg films, ''Duel'' and ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'', and ...

as Sam Bonventura *

Ken Renard Ken Renard (1905-1993) was an actor in the United States. He had roles in '' Strange Fruit'' on stage in 1945, the film '' True Grit'' (1969) and the television series ''Robert Montgomery Presents'' (1950–1957). He was born on November 19, 1905 ...

as Porter * Joyce Cunning as Norton's Secretary * Arnold F. Turner as Redcap (as Arnold Turner)

Production

Producer Charles Egelman got Steven Bochco to update the film but did not substantially change it. They showed the script to

Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Holly ...

who gave his approval.

Reception

The ''New York Times'' said the film "amounts to a flattish copy".TV Review: Nostalgia Is Lost on ''Double Indemnity'' By HOWARD THOMPSON. New York Times 13 Oct 1973: 71.

References

External links

Double Indemnity
at

TCMDB Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of At ...