Double Indemnity (2006)

Raymond Chandler and director Billy Wilder turn James M. Cain's novella Double Indemnity's venal insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray) into a sardonic Philip Marlowe gone wrong; Barbara Stanwyck cracks wise too, while dripping pheromones. EXTRAS Chats about noir, pulp, and Stanwyck's cheap blond wig. ''Wilder always thought [the wig] was one of the biggest mistakes of his career,'' says Lem Dobbs in one commentary. ''I think it's perfect,'' says Richard Schickel in another. Perversely fascinating: A '73 TV remake, with a near-identical script, is claw-your-eyes-out awful.