AAA Lucha Libre Libre, The: Invasion Tour April 5, 2009

Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into a wildly thrilling film of murder for greed. Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) is the original desperate housewife, an unhappily married femme fatale who meets insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and makes him her puppet in a doomed plot to murder her husband for lustful desire and financial gain. MacMurray is convincingly cast against type as the love- struck sap who willingly strikes a shady deal to get his dame, and Stanwyck is unapologetically bad as the sultry Phyllis, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.