Double Indemnity

'Double Indemnity', made in 1944, is consistently praised as a triumph of the art of film-making, and with good reason. It is generally classed as a 'film noir' and indeed many aspects of it belong to that school but it holds it own as a classic movie in its own right.

Surprisingly it received no Academy Awards, although it was nominated in seven categories including Best Picture, Best Actress (Barbara Stanwyck), Best Director (Wilder), and Best Screenplay (Chandler and Wilder). It would appear that its dark undertones, and cynical, and sleazy subject matter at a time of wartime national crisis affected its chances of a top prize, the major competition coming from the 'happy' film 'Going My Way'.

The casting was brilliant and was of a kind that changed Hollywood. Three of the main protagonists play roles which are completely different to their normally perceived characters. Barbara Stanwyck was at first reluctant play such a nasty piece of work, but then she saw that it made her a better all-round actress. Similarly, Fred MacMurray normally plays a Disney, genial nice-guy but he looks a better and better actor as the years pass, and here he plays to the hilt a complete heel, his smooth salesman's talk a cover for lechery, larceny and murderous intent.

The film is really held together by the wonderful Edward G. Robinson as Barton Keyes. A good guy, and not a gangster for a change, he is a fussy little treat, nagging away at detail and looking for his matches. It is a mystery why both Robinson and MacMurray were denied Academy Award nominations.

Plot Outline

A wounded man (MacMurray) staggers one night into a Los Angeles insurance company office, and settles down at his desk to introduce himself as Walter Neff, insurance salesman, and to dictate confessional notes on 'the Dietrichson claim' for his colleague Barton Keyes (Edward G.Robinson), an insurance claims adjuster. The main part of the film is Neff's story.

Calling at a fake Spanish mansion on Los Feliz Boulevard about an auto policy renewal, Neff encounters Mrs Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and can't resist putting verbal moves on her. Neff backs off when she innocently asks if it's possible to insure her older husband (Tom Powers) against accidental death without him knowing about it.

Phyllis pursues Neff to his own home, and persuades him that the two of them, together, should kill her husband. Neff knows all the tricks of his trade and comes up with a plan in which Phyllis's husband will die an unlikely death, in this case being thrown from a train. The widow will then receive twice the normal amount from the Insurance Company.

Enter Barton Keyes (Robinson), a claims investigator of Columbo-like tenacity whose only blind spot is his devotion to Neff. Keyes fusses around the case, ruling out suicide in a brilliant speech about the unlikeliness of suicide by jumping from a train and homing in on Phyllis as a murderess and rooting around for her partner in crime.

Keyes doesn't even have to do much work, because post-killing pressures are already splitting Neff and Phyllis apart, as they try not to panic during meets in a local supermarket and come to suspect each other of additional doublecrosses. In that stifling, shadowed mansion, with 'Tangerine' on the radio and honeysuckle in the air, the lovers riddle each other with bullets, and Neff staggers away to confess.

Keyes joins him in the office and sadly catches the end of the story. Neff asks for four hours so he can head for Mexico, but Keyes knows, 'You'll never make the border. You'll never even make the elevator.' .

Cast List

Barbara Stanwyck - Phyllis Dietrichson

Barbara Stanwyck (1907 - 1983) was a consummate acting professional throughout her 60 year career. She starred in almost 100 films and received four Academy nominations for Best Actress and was known as the favorite actress of many top directors. She is ranked at number 11 on the American Film Institute list of all time greatest actresses.

Edward G. Robinson - Barton Keyes

Edward G. Robinson 1893 - 1973 was born in Romania and emigrated with his family to New York when he was 10. He debuted on Broadway in 1915 but only made a major impact with the arrival of Talkies. He made his name as Rico in 'Little Caesar' in 1930 and was fated to be typecast as a gangster/tough guy for most of his 101 film career.

Fred MacMurray - Walter Neff

Frederick MacMurray (1908 - 1991) became one of the most well-known faces on movies and television during a long career. Normally cast as the friendly 'nice-guy' in comedies, he twice played villains to perfection, both times for Billy Wilder - 'Double Indemnity' and 'The Apartment'.

Porter Hall ... Mr. Jackson
Jean Heather ... Lola Dietrichson
Tom Powers ... Mr. Dietrichson
Byron Barr ... Nino Zachetti
Richard Gaines ... Edward S. Norton, Jr.
Fortunio Bonanova ... Sam Garlopis
John Philliber ... Joe Peters

Summary

When Walter drives away from the Dietrichson household, he muses in voice-over, 'How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?' This striking juxtaposition of the foul and the sweet is not a bad emblem for noir more generally. Even though, noir is difficult to define precisely, we could do worse than to call it a beautiful mode of filmmaking about ugliness, an aesthetic approach to darkness, violence, and corruption, of which 'Double Indemnity' is an extraordinary example.