Big Trouble

Big Trouble is a 1986 American comedy film and the last film for director John Cassavetes. The cast reunites Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, costars of The In-Laws, and also features Beverly D'Angelo, Charles Durning and Valerie Curtin. The film's plot is so similar to that of Double Indemnity that, prior to production, Columbia Pictures requested that Universal Pictures (rightsholder for Double Indemnity) grant a license to reuse the plot of the earlier film. Universal executive Frank Price, who had previously worked at Columbia, was aware that Columbia was holding onto a script called Back to the Future and made a deal to take ownership of the script. Plot Leonard Hoffman is a Los Angeles insurance agent with a problem on his hands. He has teenage triplets who are all gifted musicians, but wife Arlene insists that the kids attend college at Yale, requiring more than $40,000 in tuition, rather than less expensive schools like nearby UCLA. This situation is on Leonard's mind when he pays a business call to the Beverly Hills mansion of Steve and Blanche Rickey. He is met by a flirtatious and scantily clad Blanche, who explains a problem of her own: Steve is dying, with less than a week to live, but accidentally let his life insurance policy lapse.