without any spoilers...how is it?

really excited about starting my classics odyssey tonight with this one. Plan on Touch of Evil next...

If you're already going to watch it, there's no point in us saying anything. Just go in without expectations.

It's a piece of shit. Now your expectations can't be lowered than that. All you got is a high to go from there, man.

And Touch of Evil is even worse.

sometimes i like to go in with some expectations. i mean if Norman Bates loves it, then

If there was one Oscar-performance that Edward G. Robinson would've won for, it should've been this one.

Fantastic film. Pay attention to it...the dialogue is fast and sharp.

When I was in film school, the film history professor showed us Mildred Pierce for our film noir section. I thought it was terrible, overacted, and didn't show a tenth of what film noir was about.

Then the professor said they had gotten a print of Double Indemnity on loan and he was so excited about it that he just had to show us the first reel.

Well, the first reel (20 minutes) of the film was so damn good that I ended up tracking down a copy of the film on VHS and borrowed a friend's VCR just so I could watch the rest. I never forgave that professor for making us sit through all of Mildred Pierce only to tease us with 20 minutes of one of the greatest films ever made.

Mildred pierce is great. It's every bit the equal to DI. Noir isn't limited to detective movies.

I didn't say noir was limited to detective movies, but Mildred Pierce was terribly disappointing. He showed it because it's considered the first true film noir, but it is most assuredly not the best and most definitely NOT the film to show when you have a pristine print of Double Indemnity on loan from another institution sitting in your projection booth.

"Every bit the equal to DI."

My film professor showed us Double Indemnity for the film noir portion of the class. She was most wise.

+1
Yeah it's treading in different territory than what people think of as typical 'crime noir', but it's a powerful film- and pretty transgressive for the era in terms of it's view of class and family. I really wish this would come to Bd- but the DVD release got a deluge of criticism for the over use of DNR, which was an pretty rare criticism a decade ago.

As for DI- It's one of the most accessible noirs ever made and it's a Billy Wilder movie. Even if you don't like DI, his oeuvre is well worth exploring. You're bound to find something in there you won't just like, but come to treasure.

If you were friends with Alan Smithee you could've gotten the tape and the VCR in one trip

I've never heard anyone call it the first true noir. Stranger on the Third Floor is often given that title.

Hell, DI is older than Mildred pierce.

Well, both MILDRED PIERCE and DOUBLE INDEMNITY are based on novels by James M. Cain (as is THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE). MILDRED PIERCE is worth showing in class as a quintessential "woman's picture" of the time, but may not be the best example of the style of filmmaking we've come to know as film noir. If I were to teach MILDRED PIERCE, I'd have the class read the book first. The book is great and lot racier than the movie. Mildred's quite a young Southern California hottie in the book and quite promiscuous to boot. She was definitely no Joan Crawford, although, the adaptation was tailored to Crawford's strengths and she's very good in the role.

I'd kill to see a pristine 35mm print of DI in almost any context. It'd truly be a privilege. That being said, there are so many great noir films, it'd be pretty difficult to select just one in a film class to represent it.

This thread inspired me to rewatch Mildred pierce last night. Great film. How could anyone fail to see its noir pedigree? The first 20 minutes has a shooting in a beach house, smart aleck beat cops, hard boiled detectives interrogating a dame, ex-husbands confessing to murder. Great stuff.

When you consider that the novel didn't have a murder plot you REALLY see how the generic archetypes that would later be designated "noir" were being deliberately laid over more straightforward melodramas. Thus Mildred Pierce is a great demonstration if why films of this period would later be recognized for exhibiting particular traits in common.

I'll also add that even if you take away all the noir conventions I fail to see how anyone could not enjoy Mildred Pierce. Her daughter is so evil it's fascinating to watch. It has 8.0 on imdb so clearly it's pretty universally enjoyed.

I could have sworn that the professor said that Mildred Pierce was considered the first true film noir, but if it was released after DI, I don't see how that could be the case. Either I'm incorrectly remembering what he said or he was just mistaken. Either way, I'm not saying that Mildred Pierce should never be watched, but I do think it's a poor choice of film to show as an representative sample of film noir to a class full of film students who may never have seen an original noir picture before.

And then to tease Double Indemnity right afterwards was just a double slap in the face.

I've always heard that what many critics consider the first noir is Stranger On the Third Floor.

The biggest point against it as noir is the ending. I understand the Hayes Code wouldn't let them do anything like the book, but what they came up with is too much of a cop-out.

If you want a great noir with Crawford, check out The Damned Don't Cry which takes your standard noir plot and retells it from the POV of the femme fatale.

Mildred Pierce is OK. Double Indemnity is a masterpiece (even if McMurray is miscast). But neither of them can hold a candle to GUN CRAZY. You want a badass noir? Watch GUN CRAZY. You want it smacked twice across both cheeks before its chowtime at Dinkey Donuts? Inhale GUN CRAZY. You don't like GUN CRAZY? Pol Pot can't hold a candle to you

"Double Indemnity" is indeed a masterpiece. And THE best film noir ever. And although "Mildred Pierce" is not considered noir (and I don't either), it's still a pretty great movie. I have a dumb but honest question, so please don't attack me. Is "Sunset Boulevard" considered noir-ish at all?

I would consider Sunset Boulevard a noir, albeit one that turns some of the conventions of the genre on its head.

Whether Sunset Boulevard is a noir or not, I'm not sure. I suppose I can leave that to much more qualified people than I. That it's an absolutely phenomenal masterpiece of filmmaking? That I can say with total certainty.

My film noir credentials seem to be lacking, since I've never seen Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, Sunset Boulevard, or even heard of Stranger on the Third Floor. I've also never seen The Big Sleep, Shadow of a Doubt, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, or The Postman Always Rings Twice. (I pulled those last ones from a Google search for "best noir films.") But I've got The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, and Touch of Evil on my shelf, and I love all three of them, so I guess I'm not a total dunce. I could talk about Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Mickey Spillane all day, but it's the books more than the movies that I'm familiar with. (As much of a movie freak as I am, I'm even more of a literature freak; my two big DVD and Blu-ray shelves pale in comparison to my six giant bookshelves.)

I'm sure there's a special kind of cinema geek hell awaiting people like me who have multiple Uwe Boll films on DVD but have never seen Double Indemnity (or Lawrence of Arabia, or Ben-Hur, or The Seventh Seal, or etc, etc), but I like to think that my familiarity with, love for, and ownership of movies like 2001, Apocalypse Now, Citizen Kane, The Exorcist, The Godfather, King Kong, Nosferatu, Rififi, Seven Samurai, Taxi Driver, and Yojimbo sort of balances things out.

Oh, I've also never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But I certainly dig The Sting. Balance.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch some stupid fucking pirate movie starring Matthew Modine and Geena Davis.