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Directed by Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity (1944) begins with insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) returning to his office late one night. Bleeding from a gunshot wound, he records his murder confession on a Dictaphone, addressing his boss and friend, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), a meticulous and intuitive claims manager. In a flashback, Walter then remembers the day when it all started. While making a routine call on an automobile insurance client, Mr. Dietrichson (Tom Powes), he meets the man's alluring blonde wife Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck), who greets Walter wearing only a towel. Although she seems to be subtly seducing him, Phyllis coldly rebuffs Walter's advances and sends him away. Soon, however, they mutual attraction develops into an illicit romantic affair.   Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity . When Phyllis asks how she could take out an accident policy on her husband's life without his knowledge, Walter de...

Directed by Billy Wilder, Stalag 17 (1953) concerns a group of American air force sergeants interned in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp in 1944. This motley crew of men, placed at Barracks 4, includes J. J. Sefton (William Holden), an entreprising cynic who trades openly with the German guards for cigarettes, eggs, silk stockings, and other luxuries; Stanislas «Animal» Kusawa (Robert Strauss), who is infatuated with movie star Betty Grable; Harry Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck), Animal's wisecracking best friend; Price (Peter Graves), the righteous security chief; Hoffy (Richard Erdman), whom the prisoners have appointed as their leader; and Cookie (Gil Stratton), who inventories and protects Sefton's stash of contraband items. One day, fellow inmates Manfredi (Michael Moore) and Johnson (Peter Baldwin) try to escape through a tunnel, but are shot by waiting guards when they emerge outside the barbed wire fence. The other prisoners naturally conclude that one of them must have told t...

To celebrate William Holden's 98th birthday, which is on Sunday, this week on «Film Friday» I bring you the first film I ever saw him in. Incidentally, this was my first Billy Wilder picture, as well as the first time I saw Gloria Swanson (and all the other actors in it, really) on the screen. This also happens to be one of my absolute favourite films of all time. Directed by Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard (1950) tells the story of Joe Gillis (William Holden), a debt-ridden screenwriter «with a couple of B pictures to his credit.» One day, while fleeing from repossession men seeking his car, Joe turns into the private driveway of a decaying 1920s mansion on Sunset Boulevard, where he hides the vehicle in an empty garage. He quickly discovers that the house belongs to Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a long-forgotten silent film star, whose fragile illusions are preserved by her servant and former director, Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim). When Norma learns that Joe is a s...