Producer: Joseph Sistrom

Screenwriters: Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler

Co-presented by LAist

Vidiots welcomes LAist for their first in-person FilmWeek screening since 2019! This series is curated and hosted by AirTalk host Larry Mantle and puts the spotlight on films set in Southern California. This time, Larry has chosen the noir classic, Double Indemnity. Set in Los Angeles, the film features Barbara Stanwyck as a wicked femme fatale and has been described as “one of the most entertainingly perverse stories ever told and the standard by which all noir must be measured.” After the screening, Larry will host a discussion about the film with FilmWeek critic Claudia Puig and the co-authors of the new book, From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir, Alain Silver and James Ursini. You can purchase a copy of the book from a pop-up bookstore we’ll have onsite before the event.

One of the great film noirs, Double Indemnity stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck as a less-than-scrupulous insurance agent and a calculating wife who hatch a plan to do away with her wealthy husband. As the would-be lovers plot the unsuspecting husband’s murder, they are pursued by the agent’s boss, a suspicious claims manager played by Edward G. Robinson. It’s a race against time to get away with the perfect crime in Billy Wilder’s suspenseful masterpiece that was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.