Double Indemnity

When I think of Fred MacMurray, I usually think of My Three Sons. I think of The AbsentMinded Professor . . . I think of flubber, people!!! I usually don't think of serious, dramatic roles that require actors to really step out of their element and sink their teeth into a meaty role that challenges their abilities—yet Fred MacMurray did just that when he took on the role of Walter Neff in the 1944 Billy Wilder film Double Indemnity!

If I remember my notes from COMM 150, I think film noir was just coming into its own during the '40s, ushering in such landmark films as Citizen Kane, The Big Sleep, and The Maltese Falcon, just to name a few. And during a time when Bogie reigned supreme in the world of detective films, Fred MacMurray gave what I think was the performance of a lifetime as the smitten yet conflicted insurance salesman who gets caught up in a murder scheme. Penned by none other than detective writer Raymond Chandler (along with director Billy Wilder), Double Indemnity tells the story of how Neff meets the seductive Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) when he has to get some of their insurance policies renewed. Suddenly smitten for the illustrious Mrs. Dietrichson, she subtly makes some inquiries about an accident policy for her oil-tycoon husband, though Neff sees right through her motivations from the start: she simply wants to knock off her husband and collect the insurance money.

Neff initially rejects her and her proposition, but being the ladies' man that he is (and there's something so smooth about how Neff consistently calls her "baby"), and intoxicated by the honeysuckle smell he'll forever associate with her, Neff slowly allows himself to fall for her . . . and fall hard—hard enough that he begins to go along with her scheme, and actually tricks her husband into signing up for an accident policy. The catch is, if Mr. Dietrichson dies in some kind of freak accident—say, falling off a train—insurance will pay off double, because there's a clause in his accident policy called a double indemnity clause that doubles the payout under certain circumstances. This is just icing on the cake for Phyllis, who originally just wanted the insurance money and her husband disposed of, and the smitten Neff even goes on to plan the death of Mr. Dietrichson in precise detail!

Edward G. Robinson stepped out of his leading-man role with Double Indemnity and turned in his first-ever supporting role as Barton Keyes, Neff's supervisor who can smell an insurance scam a mile away, crediting his hunches to "the little man" inside him. Essentially, it's Keyes that Neff and Phyllis need to get past in order to collect their double indemnity . . . and as you can imagine, it isn't an easy ride.

The story is told all in flashback, with a wounded Neff dictating his story to Keyes into his voice-recorder (thus providing voiceover for the film); essentially, the story is Neff's confession. And for a story made in the mid-1940s, the storytelling style is remarkably ahead of its time! New ground was broken with the not-so-subtle attraction of Neff to Phyllis, with sexual innuendo being thrown about playfully but not as masked as before. In other words, the smart viewer of the time knew just what Neff and Phyllis were saying, despite how much they cleverly masked their words. For example, when Neff first arrives at the Dietrichson house, Phyllis has just emerged from the shower, wrapped in a towel. And Neff, trying to ensure that he can stay in the house long enough to do business, wittingly assures Phyllis that she wouldn't want to have a fender-bender and not be, ahem, fully covered.

Which brings me to my next point: the dialogue, which was remarkably sharp. Almost too sharp, I think. I'm not necessarily complaining, mind you, but I really can't imagine anyone spouting out such witty dialogue without missing a beat and without losing composure. But that aside, tension permeates this film to such an amazing degree! The film opens with a car speeding through the dead of night, running red lights and dodging traffic, frantically trying to reach its destination. And when a seemingly wounded Neff emerges from the car, for the longest time we don't even get to see his face. All we see is Neff from the back, cluing in the viewer that all in not right, that his coat strangely draped over his left side is concealing something, that he's possibly been injured—or shot. The buildup to when Neff kills Mr. Dietrichson is just as nail-biting! You can almost taste his tension, his fear, his precision at everything happening exactly just so. And when Phyllis gives her three-horn signal . . .

At the same time, it is and isn't surprising that the killing occurred off-screen. All we see during the actual murder is Phyllis's deadpan face, staring straight at the dark road ahead—but we still hear Mr. Dietrichson struggling against Neff. I say it's not surprising because, for a movie made in 1944, it wasn't uncommon to show a truly violent scene off-screen—or at least have the violence and gore dumbed down almost to nonexistence. It was more common to show a gun being fired in one scene, and in the next cut, seeing the victim clutching in pain to where the bullet entered . . . though with no visible blood or guts or anything. They were all clean wounds in '40s noir. But despite the commonality of having a death take place off-screen, the tension is heightened even more by this, because it relies on the viewer to use his/her imagination for Dietrichson's death! Tarantino used this to great effect in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction (and you know exactly what scenes I'm talking about).

And given that Double Indemnity is a noir picture, the use of light and darkness is absolutely perfect! Citizen Kane more or less set the standard for the use of darkness in films, even in the more lighter-hearted segments, but it worked to great effect in Double Indemnity . . . and let's not forget, this is already a black-and-white film!

Much has been made of Barbara Stanwyck's performance as the quote-unquote femme fatale, but to be honest, I really wasn't that impressed with it. Her scene with Norton, Keyes, and Neff in their office as the so-called grieving widow felt forced to me, almost not believable. For a role like hers, I was expecting a more duplicitous, manipulative performance. Stanwyck's came across (to me, at least) as just desperate, not even really evil. Between the two, I think Fred MacMurray was by far the better performer.

Double Indemnity has aged well through the years, though! It's a movie that grips you from the get-go and doesn't let up until the final credits start to roll. The basic premise of the film has even served as the template for other films, too: several people come together to pull off the perfect crime, and once committed, the group starts to fall apart through their greed and paranoia. And Double Indemnity started it all. 9 out of 10.