Double Indemnity: The Highest Achievement in Film Noir [by David Lehman]

from David Lehman's latest "Talking Pictures" column for The American Scholar:

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Director Billy Wilder’s 1944 film, Double Indemnity, is the ne plus ultra of American film noir. If we were to give out noir awards on the model of the Oscars, I believe it would win for best picture, best screenplay (written by Raymond Chandler in collaboration with Wilder), best femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck), and best supporting actor (Edward G. Robinson). Excellent as a villain and a dupe, Fred MacMurray would get a nomination for best actor in a lead role but would lose to Out of the Past’s Robert Mitchum.

The plot is that old reliable, homicidal adultery. Man falls for woman whose husband stands in the way. To consummate the illicit affair requires the couple to collaborate on eliminating the obstacle. As in The Postman Always Rings Twice, also based on a book by James M. Cain, murder presents itself as a feasible solution, albeit one that involves an intricate scheme. In both movies, the woman’s husband is almost incidental to the plot—though Cecil Kellaway’s Greek diner owner who likes getting drunk and sings “She’s Funny That Way” in Postman is a live wire next to Mr. Dietrichson (Tom Powers), the stiff to whom Stanwyck is married in Double Indemnity. There are various love triangles involving Stanwyck’s stepdaughter Lola (Jean Heather) and her boyfriend (Byron Barr), but in all of them, the husband figure is almost an afterthought, like the corpse in chapter one of a detective novel. It is Stanwyck who dominates the picture, and the triangle in which she and Robinson stand at opposite poles in MacMurray’s consciousness is the most vital one of all.

Our narrator is the wounded Walter Neff (MacMurray), a bachelor in his 30s with a healthy libidinal appetite, dictating his confession into a recording device: “How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?” Neff is the chump who works for an insurance company and knows that, because of the so-called “double indemnity” clause, the firm pays double for accidental deaths incurred while a policyholder is traveling. He and Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) conspire to amend Mr. Dietrichson’s policy before bumping him off. Then Walter will impersonate the victim and fall off a moving train, though one that is going very slowly. He and Phyllis will plant the corpse on the tracks. Plausible on paper, but it smells bad to an experienced insurance investigator—and then, to paraphrase Dana Andrews in Laura, the dame pulls a switch on you. It turns out that Phyllis has manipulated Walter to do her bidding all along. She’s in it not for love, but for her husband’s dough. She loves somebody else—to the extent that she loves anyone other than herself. By the time Neff gets cold feet, it’s too late. “The machinery had started to move, and nothing could stop it.”

Some favorite moments:

1. Stanwyck as traffic cop and MacMurray as speeding motorist when he first calls on her, hoping to get her husband to renew his life insurance. Mr. Dietrichson is not at home, but Mrs. Dietrichson is scantily clad at the top of a staircase. She descends. Sparks begin to fly. Walter has come on a bit strong, and the dialogue is a wonderful fencing match:

Phyllis: There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.

Walter: How fast was I going, officer?

Phyllis I’d say about 90.

Walter: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.

Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.

Walter: Suppose it doesn’t take.

Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.

Walter: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.

Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband’s shoulder.

Walter: That tears it.

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Continue reading here

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-highest-achievement-of-american-film-noir/

Comments

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

I agree with this statement by David: "I believe it [DOUBLE INDEMITY] would win for best picture, best screenplay (written by Raymond Chandler in collaboration with Wilder), best femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck), and best supporting actor (Edward G. Robinson). Excellent as a villain and a dupe, Fred MacMurray would get a nomination for best actor in a lead role but would lose to OUT OF THE PAST's Robert Mitchum."

I taught OUT OF THE PAST in a college course devoted to mystery and detectivn fiction at the point where we were examining postwar film noir. I showed this movie in its entirety in class. As much as Robert Mitchum garnered the majority of comments from my male students, Jane Greer, the femme fatale in this movie, garnered even more comments from my female students. They were fascinated with the moral vacuity of her demeanor and dialogue, the proverbial "ice water" running through her veins. My students finally recognized that evil at its most insidiously hidden is often worse than the merely outre. Greer's brand of evil is neither blunt nor apologetic, neither repelling in appearance nor rationalized in argument. Her character is a model of conniving self-containment, and her mutually ensorceling and repugnant malevolence scared the hell out of ALL my students.

[David Lehman]

Thanks for the excellent comment, Earle. Jane Greer as KJathiue Moffatt is one of my favorite villainous femmes fatales: https://theamericanscholar.org/rogues-gallery/
My best to you, as ever.