NFR Project: 'Double Indemnity' (1944)

 NFR Project: “Double Indemnity”

Dir: Billy Wilder

Scr: Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler

Pho: John Seitz

Ed: Doane Harrison

Premiere: July 3, 1944

107 min.

It seemed like such a good plan at the time.

This story of a would-be murder plot gone wrong is one of the classic film noirs. It has everything – adultery, a male protagonist played for a chump, a femme fatale, a “perfect crime” that quickly falls apart. All these are the hallmarks of the film noir.

The movie is based on the great crime writer James M. Cain’s classic 1938 novella of the same name. In the hands of the always-sensational director Billy Wilder, it’s a taut thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat from the word go. Add the contributions of master detective novelist Raymond Chandler as a screenwriter, you have an unbeatable combination.

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray, playing against type as a heel) is an insurance salesman who runs into a seductive housewife, Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck), who hints that she’d like to buy an insurance policy on her husband’s life – which Neff immediately senses is part of a plan to bump her abusive husband off. The only problem is: Neff is wildly attracted to her. Thinking with his crotch instead of his brain, he quickly conceives of a supposedly foolproof way to murder the husband, make it look like accident, and collect $100,000 – a “double indemnity” payout on his insurance policy.

This being Golden Age Hollywood, the censorship restrictions dictate that the perpetrators don’t get away with it. Just how all their efforts come to naught is related in a brilliant flashback, which Walter narrates as, wounded, he confesses into a Dictaphone machine. He manages to fool almost everyone except his boss, a claims manager played by Edward G. Robinson, who has a “little man” in his gut that tells him something is not right with the claim. As he gets closer to the truth, Neff finds out that his beloved has murdered before – and plans to murder again, including him.

Barbara Stanwyck, also playing against type, portrays a fabulously sexy blonde with a heart of stone. Robinson is great as the grumpy, methodical claims adjuster who just can’t leave well enough alone. John Seitz’s cinematography borrows the use of stark light and shadow from the German Expressionist films of the ‘20s, putting it to work to outline the sinister intent behind almost every character’s motivation.

In this film, almost no one is innocent. Life is seen as a tawdry collection of acts undertaken to get ahead. No one is safe; everyone is suspect. The dark and cynical tone of the film is remarkable for the time – it’s surprising that it got made. The best moments are silent; at one point Neff exclaims that he can no longer hear his footsteps – they are the footsteps of a dead man. The furtive meetings in a grocery store between Neff and Phyllis; the look on Stanwyck’s face as her husband in killed right next to her in the front seat of their car; the murderers’ car refusing to start after the body is dumped; all are key moments that tell us that, for wrongdoers, the world is an untrustworthy sewer.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Going My Way.