Back in the '40s, men were men and dames were dames, and everyone talked 100 miles an hour. At least that's how it is in Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder's 1944 film noir about an insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray) who gets sweet-talked by the requisite bombshell (Barbara Stanwyck) into secretly underwriting an insurance policy on her husband and then helping her knock him off.
This thriller is an engrossing and tightly shot classic, and it's fun to hear characters seriously delivering lines such as "I knew I had hold of a red-hot poker, and the time to drop it was before it burned my hand off!" (Bonus drinking game: Shots all around whenever MacMurray calls Stanwyck "baby.") Find out how to not murder your husband when Double Indemnity screens at 7:30 p.m. at American City Diner, 5532 Connecticut Ave. NW.