~Tuesday~ Tonight I saw a classic film that I’d never even heard of—much less seen—before I met Bob, the ultimate movie buff and movie trivia extraordinarre.
My familiarity with Barbara Stanwyck was as described in this excerpt from the IMDB page about her:
Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western “The Big Valley”(1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama “The Colbys” (1985).
But, evidently as a lot of gay men know, she’s well known beyond that as the IMDB entry goes on to say:
In 1928 Barbara moved to Hollywood, where she was to start one of the most lucrative careers filmdom had ever seen. She was an extremely versatile actress who could adapt to any role. Barbara was equally at home in all genres, from melodramas, such as Forbidden (1932) and Stella Dallas (1937), to thrillers, such as Double Indemnity (1944), one of her best films, also starring Fred MacMurray (as you have never seen him before). She also excelled in comedies such as Remember the Night (1940) and The Lady Eve (1941). Another genre she excelled in was westerns, Union Pacific (1939) being one of her first and TV’s “The Big Valley” (1965) (her most memorable role) being her last. In 1983, she played in the ABC hit mini-series “The Thorn Birds” (1983), which did much to keep her in the eye of the public. She turned in an outstanding performance as Mary Carson.
Synopsis: An insurance rep lets himself be talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme that arouses an insurance investigator’s suspicions.
My thoughts and observations on this film:
- Perhaps not surprisingly, my only familiarity with Fred MacMurry was as the father on My Three Sons, although he too, has had a prolific film career of over 50 films.. He’s excellent in this movie classic.
- I of course have heard of Edward G. Robinson, but in looking over his (also) prolific film career, I’ve seen only one of the films he was in, Key Largo.
- I was glad to be re-educated on what “double indemnity” meant. I had it confused with “double jeopardy.” And not of the Alex Trebek type.
- I really like murder-mystery, crime-solving type movies, and this one was no exception.
- And speaking of that, this movie reminded me of the TV show Columbo, probably because the Edward G. Robinson character in this movie reminded me of the Peter Falk character in that show.
I would definitely recommend this movie—if you like that same kind of movies I like, which is always the unspoken part of a recommendation, isn’t it?