The premier "film noir" entrée, DOUBLE INDEMNITY stands as the model for the genre. Told entirely in flashback, it is the grim, yet seductive story of a life insurance agent who falls for a treacherously sultry married woman plotting to do her husband in for the payoff. DOUBLE INDEMNITY is nothing less than a requirement for anyone who asks, "What is film noir?" For all the ingredients are present: the cold-hearted criminal plot, the adulterous romance, the step-by-step implementing of the deed, the anxiety-ridden moments as a steadfast mind zeroes in on the guilty parties, and the inevitability of the final justice---all filmed in grim black and white.
Did Fred MacMurray ever have a greater moment in his acting career playing Walter Neff, the Los Angeles insurance agent knocked out by a bored housewife who ropes him into her diabolical web? Did Barbara Stanwyck ever really overcome the powerful persona of Mrs. Dietrichson, the calculating murderess standing at the top of the stairs in a bath towel? And could there have been a better screen writer for DOUBLE INDEMNITY than the assiduous Raymond Chandler (THE BIG SLEEP, FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, THE LONG GOODBYE), who remains the unequaled master of the Los Angeles detective genre?
Not to be outdone, Edward G. Robinson turns in a yeoman's performance as Keyes, MacMurray's boss. Keyes is a walking encyclopedia of fraudulent insurance claims and is nearly infallible in his ability to sniff out the rotten stench of not-so-accidental death. In one memorable scene, Keyes reduces his own superior to pulp as he lectures him that "no one ever committed suicide by throwing themselves off a train moving at 5 miles per hour." He cites the statistics of death by poisoning, drowning, lightning strikes, and electrocution straight off the top of his head. At what point Keyes becomes suspicious of Neff is never quite clear; but he is certainly suspicious of Stanwyck from the start--and Neff had taken Stanwyck's life insurance policy just before her husband supposedly went off the caboose.
One certain proof that a detective drama is succeeding is the identification the audience has with the villains. A cold-blooded murder has been committed, yet we somehow squirm nervously for the perpetrators hoping their plot succeeds. The epitome of this identification occurs in the scene after Neff impersonates Dietrichson on the train. MacMurray races back to the car where Stanwyck awaits and the car engine stalls. He tries to turn it over again and again. We actually want the car to start!
The only soft spot that exists in this sensationally crafted Ramond Chandler script is MacMurray's character transformation. He simply evolves from cavalier life insurance salesman to murderer far too soon after falling for Stanwyck. Moreover, Neff's seemingly air-tight plot to erase Dietrichson materializes a bit too quickly and precisely in his mind.
What is central is that in the end it isn't Neff's boss Keyes who throws the light on the murder--it's the adulterous relationship between MacMurray and Stanwyck itself. No one other than the plotters themselves was needed to undo the evil, for the villainous collaboration contained the seeds for its own destruction. In the end, the lovers turn on one another and the twisted relationship destroys both of them.
DOUBLE INDEMNITY is simply one of Hollywood's movie detective classics. And anyone who fails to include DOUBLE INDEMNITY in an all-time list of greats knows very little about films.
Dennis Caracciolo
Did Fred MacMurray ever have a greater moment in his acting career playing Walter Neff, the Los Angeles insurance agent knocked out by a bored housewife who ropes him into her diabolical web? Did Barbara Stanwyck ever really overcome the powerful persona of Mrs. Dietrichson, the calculating murderess standing at the top of the stairs in a bath towel? And could there have been a better screen writer for DOUBLE INDEMNITY than the assiduous Raymond Chandler (THE BIG SLEEP, FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, THE LONG GOODBYE), who remains the unequaled master of the Los Angeles detective genre?
Not to be outdone, Edward G. Robinson turns in a yeoman's performance as Keyes, MacMurray's boss. Keyes is a walking encyclopedia of fraudulent insurance claims and is nearly infallible in his ability to sniff out the rotten stench of not-so-accidental death. In one memorable scene, Keyes reduces his own superior to pulp as he lectures him that "no one ever committed suicide by throwing themselves off a train moving at 5 miles per hour." He cites the statistics of death by poisoning, drowning, lightning strikes, and electrocution straight off the top of his head. At what point Keyes becomes suspicious of Neff is never quite clear; but he is certainly suspicious of Stanwyck from the start--and Neff had taken Stanwyck's life insurance policy just before her husband supposedly went off the caboose.
One certain proof that a detective drama is succeeding is the identification the audience has with the villains. A cold-blooded murder has been committed, yet we somehow squirm nervously for the perpetrators hoping their plot succeeds. The epitome of this identification occurs in the scene after Neff impersonates Dietrichson on the train. MacMurray races back to the car where Stanwyck awaits and the car engine stalls. He tries to turn it over again and again. We actually want the car to start!
The only soft spot that exists in this sensationally crafted Ramond Chandler script is MacMurray's character transformation. He simply evolves from cavalier life insurance salesman to murderer far too soon after falling for Stanwyck. Moreover, Neff's seemingly air-tight plot to erase Dietrichson materializes a bit too quickly and precisely in his mind.
What is central is that in the end it isn't Neff's boss Keyes who throws the light on the murder--it's the adulterous relationship between MacMurray and Stanwyck itself. No one other than the plotters themselves was needed to undo the evil, for the villainous collaboration contained the seeds for its own destruction. In the end, the lovers turn on one another and the twisted relationship destroys both of them.
DOUBLE INDEMNITY is simply one of Hollywood's movie detective classics. And anyone who fails to include DOUBLE INDEMNITY in an all-time list of greats knows very little about films.
Dennis Caracciolo