Probably one of the most famous ever film noirs was Double Indemnity (1944) directed by Billy Wilder. With the lead characters being Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray who was best known for the film although he went onto star in over one hundred films during his acting career. The film is regarded as possessing the classic characteristics of film noirs and it was released at a time when the genre of noir was beginning to enter its best years. The title “double indemnity” refers to the clause in a life insurance contract which states in certain instances such as a railway accident as in the film, there can be a double payout of insurance, this is key to the central murder which starts the downfall in chain of events in the film. Double Indemnity is portrayed using a non linear narrative with the end of the film being shown at the start before a flashback to how the main character, Neff, got into the mess, before the flashback catches up to the end at the start of the film. The film starts of with the main character Walter Neff (played by MacMurray) walking with some limp to an office where he picks up a Dictaphone and recalls how he got into the mess he is in. Not long into the flashback Neff first encounters Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) as he calls round her house to speak to her husband who is at work and does not appear. The visit is just a custom renewal visit for Neff to attempt to get Phyllis’s husband to renew his automobile insurance. They exchange in flirtatious talk before Phyllis asks Neff if it is possible to take out a life insurance policy for her husband without him being aware of it. It is at this point that Neff decides to leave as he is aware that Phyllis is considering murdering her husband of which he wants no part. Over time however Phyllis wears Neff down after visiting him at his house, he agrees to the sinister plan which involves killing Phyllis’s husband in unusual circumstances, so that the double indemnity clause will be triggered in his life insurance policy.
However through his experience in insurance Neff is aware that for the plan to be a success and the double payout to be received there must be no flaws in the killing. The first problem which is facing Neff and Phyllis is that they must get Phyllis’s husband to sign the insurance policy without him knowing that it is a life insurance policy. To do this Neff arranges to visit the Dietrichson house and the plan is to make Mr Dietrichson think he is signing an insurance contract to renew his automobile policy when in fact he is signing a life insurance policy on himself. Neff shows composure to keep his cool and no allow Mr Dietrichson to see what the contract really says. The signing of the contract goes smoothly and Neff takes a fee from Mr Dietrichson for signing the contract.
After a series of secret meetings Neff and Phyllis carry out their plan. They drive Mr Dietrichson (who has obtained a broken leg which unexpectedly moved their plan forward) to the train station. On the way Phyllis who is driving takes a turn of the route and Neff strangles to death Mr Dietrichson. The next scene shows Neff entering a train impersonating Mr Dietrichson with crutches pretending to have a broken leg. Neff jumps off of the back of the train and later Phyllis and Neff drop the body of Mr Dietrichson onto the train track making it look like an accident that he fell off in order to claim the double indemnity clause for an unexpected accident.
After the body is found on the track the firm where Neff works are ordered as expected to payout the double indemnity to Phyllis. However Keyes (Porter Hall) who is Neff’s boss is suspicious about the death although the police treated it as an accident. Keyes claims to have a knack for knowing when something is not right in an insurance claim and decides to investigate before paying out the money to Phyllis. This worries Neff, so he decides that he and Phyllis cannot meet for a while during investigation, although Neff believes that Phyllis truly has feelings for him and that they could be together. It later emerges through Keyes’s observations of Phyllis that she is seeing her dead husband daughter’s boyfriend Nino (Byron Barr) which Neff discovers and decides to attempt to frame Nino as Phyllis’s accomplice which is Keyes theory to the killing. To do this Neff plans to kill Phyllis and make it look like Nino killed her and this will act as revenge for Phyllis leading him on.
Neff arrives at the Dietrichson house and is invited in, Phyllis pulls out a gun to Neff’s surprise before he could and shoots Neff, in a sudden turn of events Phyllis declares that she never loved Neff “until a minute ago, when I couldn’t fire that second shot”. A wounded Neff does not believe her however and as the two go to hug Phyllis facial expression changes as she feels a gun pressed against her and Neff shoots her twice killing her.
The movie then reaches it climax which is also the start in the non linear narrative style which Double Indemnity employed. Neff is shown talking into his Dictaphone before Keyes walks in to hear enough of the story to realise that Neff was behind the elaborate plan although with Phyllis. Upon seeing Keyes, Neff pleads to him to be allowed the chance to attempt to flee to Portugal
As I mentioned previously Double Indemnity is seen as one of the best known noirs of all time and thus shows typical characteristics which noirs are noted as having. One of these characteristics is the non linear narrative employed which tells the story with the end at the start and the audience slowing are made aware of how the events occurred before the story catches up to the start scene. This type of narrative was common to film noirs and is used among other things to draws the attention of the viewer immediately and make them want to find out how the sitituation in the start scene occurred which Double Indemnity effectively achieves.
Another characteristic of typical types of film noirs which is evident in Double Indemnity is the characters used in the storyline. There is Neff who is the everyday working man trying to earn an honest living and happens to meet the wrong person in Phyllis who persuades him to attempt to cash in by breaking the law and murdering. As with many noirs the anti-hero which is often the central character to the storyline makes one mistake and thus goes on a never ending downhill spiral. A further typical noir character is Phyllis she is a classic femme fatale, attractive, deceiving and deadly. Phyllis uses her charm and level of deceit to lure Neff into her cunning plan before betraying him and showing a killer instinct shooting him at the end of the him though she does show some compassion which in the end leads to her death. This is in fitting with many femme fatales which have appeared in noirs over the years but perhaps it may be argued that Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson was the best example of fatales. Stanwyck was already one the leading actresses in America
A typical noir scene in Double Indemnity is the face off between Phyllis and Neff. It is common for noirs to end with the main characters (man and woman lead) breaking up in some way usually death or being caught by the police. It was inevitable that there would not be a happy end for Phyllis and Neff as is the values which film noir brings the audience. The common messages shown in film noirs is that making one wrong decision can cause things to spiral for the characters involved, crime doesn’t pay and do not trust anyone with betrayal being a feature in many noirs. These messages are shown clearly in Double Indemnity which is part of what makes it known as one of the best examples of film noir.
The atmosphere of Double Indemnity is quite on edge with many parts of it being nervy for the main characters following Phyllis’s proposal to Neff to help her kill her husband for money. There are several examples of this throughout the film, one is the meeting with Phyllis and Neff’s insurance company, another is the killing itself the music picks up before the attack on Phyllis’s husband, these scenes help to create a tense atmosphere to the film throughout.
Moreover the cinematography in Double Indemnity makes use shadows from the blinds of windows many times in order to cut the actors faces into pieces in typical noir fashion. Noirs were famous for their femme fatales and making woman characters appear dominant and in Double Indemnity the cinematography is cleverly used to make Phyllis seem powerful and demanding. One example of this is the high angle shot of Phyllis on the balcony with Neff below with Phyllis being the much more imposing figure and very much in control.
Double Indemnity throughout in typical noir style goes from shot to shot using a dissolve edit to do this. The shot from the previous scene slowly disappear and the next shot comes into focus. An example of the film using this is at the start as Neff starts his flashback to how he got in the mess he is in, the shot of Neff talking dissolves from the screen with the flashback shot taken over the screen, this is a technique commonly used in the editing of film noirs. The film uses dissolve along with more convectional editing styles such as straight forward cuts and jump shot to transition between shots.
Furthermore one distinction between classic era film noirs and other types of movies is the mise-en-scene they use. Film noirs were known in their classic period to be crime thrillers which were dark, deadly and sometimes seductive with their femme fatales. This stereotype is largely down to the how noirs make use of the black and white pictures by using shadows to effect creepy type setting and using tall buildings with huge shadows. The clothing of the male characters was usually formal suits and trench coats. While the female characters were dressed attractively to lure male characters in before later showing true killer instincts.
Additionally Double Indemnity follows these mise-en-scene principles of noirs. Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck) is a dressed a you would expect femme fatale to be while Keyes and Neff were formally dressed as insurance salesmen. The props the film uses are very much in keeping with creating the darks shadows and lamps, furniture and stair banisters are used to do this. Different shades of dark colours are used for lighting throughout the film to create a mysterious visual for viewers.
The music the movie employs is mostly of a frantic nature and plays continuously through much of the nervy scenes for the characters involved. Examples of this being used are in the killing of Mr Dietrichson and the meeting between Phyllis and Neff’s work colleagues. In other scenes there is calmer music played this is mostly after the killing of Phyllis’s husband.
Film noirs such as Double Indemnity were well known for there success from their era and the film itself achieved good feedback from audiences. When it was brought to cinema it main target audience would be people who were affected by the war and who were angry for different reasons as an effect of the war. This was the audience that many noirs were aimed at and the violence and law breaking behaviour reflected the feelings of many around the time, they felt frustrated and the type of actions in noirs where more real to them than movies which tried to make life seem as a happy ending, when this was not the case for many of the time the movie was released.
Finally Double Indemnity has includes many of the ingredients which helped noirs spring to prominence during the 1940s and 1950s. It has many traits you would expect a film noir to have including a downhill spiral for the everyday man and a non linear narrative. These types of traits which were put together to create the film along with the leading actors in the film helped it to be remembered and the film was ranked at thirty eight in the top one hundred 20th American films by the American Film Institute which shows the success which it achieved.
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