(Originally written June 15, 2007)

I’ve probably seen this American classic more than any other with the exception of Duck Soup. For the longest time, it was, for me, Billy Wilder’s greatest film, a dangerous investigation of the marriage of lust and murder. The film has some of the greatest moments, including the chilling end of the film. For the entire film, Fred MacMurray lights Edward G. Robinson’s cigars, but the opposite is true for the final sequence. It’s a reversal of roles that plays out absolutely beautifully. However, as I have begun to develop more of a sense of cynicism towards established American film classics, I have begun to realize what a talky film this is. Talk is by no means a bad thing, but to say that the dialogue has the same genuine sense of sexual tension of a Howard Hawks film such as To Have and Have Not or the same smoky film noir weariness of The Big Sleep would not be true. Wilder was very obviously a cynic, holding a very critical and harsh view of the world around him. His best films (The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard, and Sabrina) articulate these feelings while also having a sense of humor about them. Film is, by its very nature, a visual medium, and this film is so propelled by dialogue that is not even Wilder’s most vibrant and sharp. The idea of “straight down the line” becomes tired, and the one-liners alternate between biting and overdone. After watching film noirs such as The Big Sleep and Pickup on South Street, this just does not seem nearly as dangerous for me as it once did. I am in no way suggesting that I do not like this film because it is still fantastic, but it falls short of being the masterpiece it is often purported to be.