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Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, from a James M. Cain novella
Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
USA, 1944
Not Rated (PG-equivalent content; violence and mature themes)
ADULTERY AND FIDELITY
Double Indemnity, one of the first and one of the greatest films noir ever made, has the trademark cynical voice-over narration by the leading man. As Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), an insurance salesman, leaves the house of the Dietrichsons after a visit to persuade Mr. Dietrichson to renew his car insurance policy, all he can think about is the Mrs. of the household, a woman named Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck). He muses in the voice-over, "How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?" Double Indemnity is streaked with dark poetry of this sort that, with the aid of striking cinematography that accentuates the film’s slinkiness and luminous shadows, establishes the moodiness of the decadent Californian atmosphere. One can smell the honeysuckle, the perfume of Phyllis Dietrichson, and Walter Neff’s anxiety.
This brilliant film of American lust and greed is pitch-perfect, and Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray sizzle as deceptive lovers who murder Mr. Dietrichson to collect $100,000 in insurance from a double indemnity policy so they can run away together. They plan the murder so skillfully that it was bound to come undone at the seams. Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), a highly astute insurance investigator at Walter Neff’s company who listens to "the little man" in his stomach to point out fake claims, deduces correctly that something is amiss when Mr. Dietrichson is found dead on the railroad tracks and, because their affair was no more about love than a one night stand, Walter and Phyllis turn against each other.
Barbara Stanwyck, in the role of the quintessential femme fatale, is frighteningly seductive and gives off a scorching white heat. She isn’t a straightforward beauty, but she has undeniable sexuality as Phyllis Dietrichson, a housewife who is bound to a life she hates with a husband who hates her. She is superb at playing cunning and cold, and MacMurray, who plays stiff, fits perfectly. The two make a grim, icy couple- two people who are drawn to each other, but whose attraction is fatal.
Double Indemnity merged the talents of Billy Wilder, one of the greatest directors who has ever lived; Raymond Chandler, the famous novelist whose works spawned films like The Big Sleep; and James M. Cain, the notorious writer whose novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, was made into a very good film noir that echoed Double Indemnity. The screenplay, written by Wilder and Chandler, crackles with quick, sharp dialogue. It is not the story here that glimmers, but the relationships. The characters here aren’t sketched with great detail, but we feel tension, exploding nerves, and affection between them because of the bravura performances and the expressive faces and postures of the actors. Double Indemnity wisely stays cynical; it was The Postman Always Rings Twice’s transformation into an Aesop fable at the end that made it turn sour. Double Indemnity doesn’t need an outright message. It’s about sexual control and fidelity.
Ultimately, despite all the crime in the film, Double Indemnity remains exceptionally human by focusing on the Keyes-Neff relationship at the end. The two men have known each other for eleven years, and Barton Keyes has become a father figure to Walter. Neither one is married, and so their strong friendship becomes a substitute for romantic love and wedlock. Double Indemnity is about their fidelity as friends, even after the evil double-crosses and lies and trickery by Walter. The film’s finale has wonderful nuances; the two characters don’t need to speak volumes orally, for simple gestures like Keyes lighting Walter’s cigarette are enough. Their friendship is not broken by Walter’s fling with an electrifying seductress, because it has grown to be as strong as a marriage.
By Andrew Chan
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