Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Stamp Collecting Mentioned in "Double Indemity"

In case you didn't know, Double Indemnity is a 1944 American film noir, directed by Billy Wilder.

According to an entry on Wikipedia, "The film stars Fred MacMurray as an insurance salesman, Barbara Stanwyck as a provocative housewife who wishes her husband were dead, and Edward G. Robinson as a claims adjuster whose job is to find phony claims. The term 'double indemnity' refers to a clause in certain life insurance policies that doubles the payout in cases when death is caused by accidental means."

Writer Ezra Fox quotes some of the film's script on the Out Of The Storm News website which goes like this...

Phyllis: I hope you didn’t mind my changing the appointment. Last night wasn’t so convenient.


Neff: It’s all right. I was working on my stamp collection anyway.

EF: Do insurance agents all have stamp collections?

Insurance Man: I don’t have one but I was strongly advised to start one by the international insurance agents council. Of course, I am only kidding. No, we do not all have stamp collections.

As a footnote, Ezra pens, "A quick Internet scouring has confirmed the lack of a link between insurance agents and stamp collectors, although stamp collector’s insurance is real, and according to one policy has an exclusion for war and nuclear hazards. I have to think that after war and 'nuclear hazards' a destroyed stamp collection might be the least of the average philatelist’s problems, but I could be wrong."

To read Ezra entire article, click here.

To buy stamp insurance, click here.
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posted by Don Schilling at 12:01 AM