Film genres don’t have founding dates. They don’t start as genres, but as trends, and this was the case with film noir, which was first recognised as a genre by Nino Frank and other French film critics who, being deprived of Hollywood films during the WW2 occupation, were more likely to notice something new when their cinemas were flooded following Liberation. The actual parameters of the genre are still a matter of debate, including the actual first film noir. However, the first film noir to be universally recognised as such and later serving as a template for the other classic pieces of the genre was Double Indemnity, the 1944 crime drama directed by Billy Wilder, known as one of the most important and influential works of Classic Hollywood.
The film is based on the eponymous 1943 novel by James M. Cain, inspired by the real-life case of Ruth Snyder, a New York woman who in 1928 was executed for the murder of her husband Albert, which she had committed with her lover Henry Judd Grey in order to collect her husband’s insurance policy. The very same case also inspired Cain to write the 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, which would also become the basis for classic films. The film version of Double Indemnity is set in California and the plot begins on 16th July 1938. After erratically driving through the streets of Los Angeles late at night, insurance salesman Walter Neff (played by Fred MacMurray) arrives at his company office, takes a dictaphone and, visibly hurt, begins to dictate his confession to Barton Keyes (played by Edward G. Robinson), his boss, friend and mentor.
The plot through flashback goes one year earlier and shows how Neff came to the home of Dietrichson (played by Tom Powers), an oil executive, to remind him to renew his car insurance policies. Dietrichson isn’t there, but his alluring wife Phyllis (played by Barbara Stanwyck) is. Neff and Phyllis immediately begin to flirt with each other and soon realise that they are hopelessly attracted not only to each other, but also to Dietrichson’s money. Neff is at first reluctant, but then uses his knowledge of insurance procedures to come up with a plan that will allow them to start a new life together. He tricks Dietrichson into signing an insurance policy with a double indemnity clause which would result in a hefty sum paid to Phyllis in case of accidental death. Then he and Phyllis murder Dietrichson and dispose of his body in a way that looks like he fell from a train during a business trip.
At first, the death is ruled as an accident, but Neff has to deal with Keyes, who is a highly experienced adjuster with a great talent for revealing insurance frauds. Keyes, partly in order to prevent his company from paying the insurance, and partly due to his instinct, suspects that something is very wrong with the case and that Dietrichson might be the victim of murder. Neff and Phyllis are forced to avoid each other in order to stave off any suspicion. Neff becomes increasingly paranoid and begins to feel that Phyllis might have an agenda of her own.
Double Indemnity features the most iconic components of the film noir formula in almost textbook fashion – the main anti-heroic character presented as an ordinary man driven to crime by succumbing to forces of lust and greed beyond his control; a diabolically manipulative and irresistible femme fatale; a story told through a cynical voice-over; black and white cinematography that provides not only an atmosphere of doom but also a sharp contrast between the facade of sunny, prosperous mid-20th century America and the underbelly of depravity and corruption in its houses, offices or night-time streets.
The film was directed by Billy Wilder, an Austrian immigrant who had gained rich and valuable experience as a screenwriter in Classic Hollywood and whose work as a director was even more impressive. Wilder was, however, experienced enough to realise that such a film would need a scriptwriter with skills even greater than his. Cain’s original story was floated in Hollywood studios in the mid-1930s, but none of the studios dared to touch it, fearing that its sleazy content wouldn’t be accepted by the fanatical censors of the Hays Office and their interpretation of the MPAA Production Code. A decade later, with the Second World War going on and scriptwriters developing new ways to allow “problematic” content to slip between the cracks, Double Indemnity became filmable.
Wilder brought Raymond Chandler, former private detective and famed author of “hard-boiled” crime fiction, to write the script. Wilder and Chandler clashed on the set, often due to Chandler’s alcoholism (which would serve as an inspiration for the main character in Wilder’s next film, the Oscar-winning drama The Lost Weekend). Yet, those clashes ultimately produced one of the greatest scripts of its time, with sharp dialogue, an effective plot and great pace. Thanks to Chandler’s script and Wilder’s brilliant direction, Double Indemnity, despite being set eighty years ago, looks like a very modern, almost timeless story and it isn’t surprising that it was, in one way or another, retold many different times, not only through other film noirs, but also through its more modern incarnations, the most notable being its spiritual 1981 remake Body Heat.
Much of the film’s success can be attributed to inspired casting. Fred MacMurray, who plays the main character, was initially reluctant to take the role that was very different from those he had played before, being the protagonist of light comedies, and those he would play later and earn fame as a grandfatherly figure in popular television shows. MacMurray plays Neff as an attractive but not too glamorous man, whose relatively good looks would allow him to seduce women and relatively good intelligence would allow him to sell insurance policies to naive customers, but who can’t fill the emptiness created by a lack of morals. Neff is doomed from the start and only the open confession of his crimes and certainty of his demise allows the audience to sympathise with him despite his acts being despicable. Neff not only cheats and murders, but also goes even further by trying to manipulate or even seduce Lola (played by Jean Heather), Dietrichson’s teenage daughter from a first marriage, and who would ultimately prove the catalyst for the violent and predictably tragic finale.
Neff’s sleaziness is well-matched by the sleaziness of the character played by Barbara Stanwyck, an actress who, until that time, had made a career playing conventional heroines. Phyllis is seductive, vampish but hardly glamorous, with her obviously false and bad wig being a clear signal that she might not be what she pretends to be. Her evil and self-confessed “rottenness” becomes that black hole that would bring almost all people around her to their doom, including her husband, Neff and, finally, herself. The characters of Neff and Phyllis seem perfect for each other, and the pairing of MacMurray with Stanwyck is one of the most effective in the history of Hollywood.
The audience in the 1940s, just as now, would have problems accepting such rottenness without some sort of moral anchor and it is provided by Edward G. Robinson, a 1930s Hollywood star who by that time had graciously accepted transformation into a character actor. Keyes is portrayed as an intelligent, efficient man who is completely dedicated to his job at the expense of family and who treats Neff as his surrogate son, resulting in his otherwise sociopathic employee feeling genuine friendship and affection for his boss. The three main actors are well-matched by the rest of the cast, as well as brilliant cinematographer John F. Seitz and composer Miklós Rózsa who provided a very good score.
Double Indemnity with its black-and-white photography and implicit depictions of sex and violence might have problems attracting some of today’s viewers, but those who give it a chance will be rewarded with a genre-defining classic.
RATING: 9/10 (++++)
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