Double Indemnity (1944)

Straight Down the Crime

(The post begins with a slow fade onto a black-and-white yet still dusty-feeling screen. The scene opens on an apartment laden with organized chaos, the remnants of a long move still lingering in the air and on the floors. Two white yuppies and their dog appear: bowls of popcorn in hand, high expectations in head. They settle in to watch Double Indemnity, a classic of the film noir genre. One of them tells herself that she’ll try to take fewer notes than usual; this time will be different. The other silently wonders if his interest in the genre was inculcated by riding the Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror ride at Disney World; he says “Sure honey.” They press play…)

Third-wheeling like (Source)

Previews

What, if anything, did we know about this coming attraction before we watched it?

Ellen: I most recently watched this for my film class in college, which means it was nearly 10 years ago 😬. I’m pretty sure I had also seen it once before that, but I remembered almost nothing except a vague whiff of insurance fraud¹.

Tyler: While I know absolutely nothing about the actual plot of Double Indemnity, I know it’s a highly regarded noir. I’ve given it to you as a Pick Three option a couple times before (a three-time nominee, if you will), so when you finally returned the favor I knew right away that I’d be picking it. No time to waste, let’s get to it! 

Plots & Feelings

This one’s pretty self-explanatory.

Short Version (courtesy of IMDb): A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.

Long Version (modified from Wikipedia and formatted to fit your screen):

• The silhouette of a man on crutches slowly stalks toward us as the title cards roll. Ominous! We pan to the streets of 1938 Los Angeles for some typical erratic driving and eventually follow one Mr. Walter Neff into the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company, where only the janitors are left. Walter slowly proceeds to his office, where he removes his coat to reveal a gunshot wound to the shoulder! He busts out a dictaphone² and starts explaining it all to claims adjuster Barton Keyes.

  • Ellen: I was slightly distracted by the fact that he was wearing his trench over his shoulders but without putting his arms through the sleeves like a trendy Bachelor contestant lol

  • Tyler: You gotta respect the man’s commitment to style despite bleeding out a hole in his arm.

“Dict” me thru the phone (Source)

• One year earlier³, Walter stopped by the house of Mr. Dietrichson⁴ to try to sell him a renewal on his auto insurance policy. What he found instead, however, was the alluring Mrs. Phyllis Dietrichson, wearing a towel and a very distracting anklet. After she gets dressed, they engage in some world class flirting and double indemnity entendre. They eventually plan to meet later that week to discuss her husband’s car policy, but oops, she changed it to a time he wouldn’t be there! They continue on the saucy foot upon which they left, until Phyllis spoils the mood by oh-so-casually bringing up secret accident insurance for her husband. Walter books it out of there, knowing a gigantic red flag when he sees one, grabbing his hat and stopping for a drive-in beer on the way home.

  • Ellen: The absolute, unwarranted confidence of this man flirting with a married woman, holy cow!

  • Tyler: Agreed! Their Sorkin-/ASP-esque back-and-forth here is so well written, it almost makes you forget how creepy his advances are. Another one to add to the “Things We’re Extra Sensitive To As Newlyweds” folder.

  • Ellen: As a point in this movie’s favor, though, she is undeniably flirting back, so that helps.

0 to 60 in 35 seconds (Source)

• Phyllis shows up to Walter’s apartment in a fabulous trench coat under the guise of returning a hat he definitely didn’t forget. She confesses that she hates her husband, who gets drunk and slaps her and is always angry with her. The life insurance won’t even go to her if something were to happen, but rather to his daughter from his first marriage, Lola. The First Wife got sick, and Phyllis was her nurse! He used to be rich, but the oil business can be fickle. Walter does his best to explain all of the ways in which this will go wrong and she’ll get caught, but after they make love, he’s like “okay fine yeah let’s kill a man.” She continually insists that they’ll do it together “straight down the line.” Back on the dictaphone, Walter confesses to Keyes it was in part for Phyllis, but also because, as an insurance man, his pride made him wonder if he could pull off the perfect crime/fraud combo meal⁵.

  • Tyler: The seemingly random "man grabs woman and kisses her" is basically the free space in a 1940s movie bingo card at this point, though as you said, at least they built up some sexual tension.

Look, now you know for next time (Source)

• Mr. Dietrichson does not want accident insurance. Walter gets around this by having him sign a fake “second copy” of his auto policy, as witnessed by Phyllis and Lola. Lola uses Walter leaving the house to help her sneak out to see her not-so-great boyfriend Nino Zachette (sounds like spaghetti). Walter explains in his voice-over that if they were going to murder a man, they may as well get their money’s worth, so they’re going for the double indemnity clause - a double payout for unlikely accidents, in this case $100,000⁶. This means they need to get Mr. Dietrichson on a train somehow, and his college reunion at Stanford is just the way to do it. Weeks of planning ensues, including clandestine meetings at the grocery store and many quarters spent on pay phones.

Don’t mind us, definitely nothing to hide here (Source)

• Amidst the murder plot, Keyes offers Walter a job as an adjuster, giving an impassioned speech about how it actually takes a brain. Walter doesn’t think it’d be worth the pay cut, and the whole spiel is interrupted by Phyllis calling to say despite her husband’s broken leg, he’s taking the train tonight!

  • Tyler: “You're not smarter, you're just taller” is also me admitting my tall privilege.

  • Ellen: I love Keyes’ speech here. Also, his mannerisms remind me so much of Moishe from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

More like Double In-damnthisknee (Source)

• Phyllis drives her husband to the train station, and unbeknownst to him, Walter is hiding in the back seat. On a dark street, Walter strangles him from behind, and Phyllis simply waits for the job to be done. They pull up to the station, with Walter playing the part of the injured Mr. Dietrichson. His plan to jump off the back of the observation deck is slightly hampered by the talkative Jackson from Medford, Oregon! Walter shakes him off and leaps from the train, where Phyllis is waiting to place the body of her husband. The two part ways, but as Walter walks back to his apartment and his perfect alibi, the adrenaline fades and the enormity of what he’s done hits him.

  • Ellen: Walter’s jump from the train looked very believable, which is to say he stumbled and fumbled a lot.

Doesn’t look like anything to me (Source)

• Norton, the company’s president, does not want to pay and is convinced the death is suicide. Keyes counters that no one could realistically expect to break their neck at 15 mph. The real smoking gun, in his opinion, is that Mr. Dietrichson didn’t file a claim for his broken leg! Walter, who up until now had been pretty pleased with himself, lights a match with his fingernail, as he’s wont to do, and starts smoking. Norton hauls Phyllis in for an ill-timed interrogation, and the grieving widow is insulted and appalled. That same widow attempts to see Walter that night, but Keyes is at his apartment first, discussing how the murder could have been pulled off.

  • Tyler: The situation with Keyes showing up to Walter’s place while he knows Phyllis is on her way, not to mention her hiding behind his door in the hallway, is so wonderfully tense. 

“Sad, I’m sad, wow I’m so very sad.” (Source)

• Lola, meanwhile, confides in Walter that she doesn’t buy any of this. She’s pretty sure Phyllis killed her mother, and she saw her pinning a black veil to a black hat two days before Mr. Dietrichson’s death. Under the guise of concern, Walter spends more and more time with Lola to prevent her from whistleblowing. Across town, Phyllis is spending night after night at the house with Nino of all people, which leads Lola to believe he’s involved.

• Keyes manages to find Jackson! They bring him in to verify if the “Mr. Dietrichson” he saw was the genuine article or not. Jackson has lots to say of no consequence, forcing Keyes to remind him “We’re not in Medford, we’re in a hurry!” He confirms the man on the train was younger than the deceased. Walter tries to convince Phyllis not to sue over the rejected claim, and she’s like “the insurance angle is your fault, idiot, and I want what I was promised.”

  • Tyler: The whole time Jackson was like “I think I recognize you …” I was yelling for Walter to just be like “Yea sure I totally have family in Oregon, that’s where you know me from.” Instead, he (understandably) said as little as possible as the tension ramped up.

And for sunglasses inside to be socially acceptable (Source)

• Walter sneaks into Keyes office and finds a memo vouching for himself and defaming Nino. He goes to Phyllis’s house armed with a gun, not knowing that he’d find her in a real “I murdered my husband” outfit with a firearm of her own. He explains how he’s going to set it all up for her to take the fall, despite her efforts to wind up Zachette so that he’d kill Lola so she’ll get her husband’s inheritance money. Phyllis has had enough and simply shoots him, but finds herself unable to fire again. Walter kills her instead, and even warns Zachette he’s being set up.

The brown bananas on our counter talking to each other (Source)

• Back at the office, the blood has been blooming on Walter’s suit, and Keyes walks in on his recording session. It’s all out there now, and Keyes has called an ambulance. Walter insists on attempting to make it to Mexico, but collapses in the doorway. Keyes lights a cigarette for Walter, as the other man always did for him, and they wait for the police to arrive.

How straight men say “I love you” (Source)

Intermission

Even though ILTBTA is free, please indulge us further and enjoy this quick “advertisement.”

This installment of ILTBTA is brought to you by … the Tourism Bureau of Medford, Oregon!

Take a trip to scenic Medford, Oregon and experience our bucolic and friendly community. Named after the much worse Medford, MA (which we definitely do not have a little brother complex about!), we have a rich history dating back to the 19th century, which you can learn all about at our new Medford Heritage Center!

Enjoy our temperate climate by walking down our quaint Main Street and find placards of fun facts about the city and its famous former inhabitants, including acclaimed actress and dancer Ginger Rogers, member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Scott Thurston, and (scrapes bottom of barrel) former Miss Oregon and The Apprentice contestant Jennifer Murphy. One of our citizens even helped solve a big murder case in Los Angeles in the 40s!

I’m a Medford man! (Source)

Here, we’re not like those city slickers you hear about on the radio: we take our time making up our minds on important decisions. But when we decide, we mean what we say and say what we mean. Decide to come to Medford today!

Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat?

Love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole in search of some fun facts? Us too.

Double Indemnity’s Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and anecdotes that we recommend you read through, but here are a few of our favorites:

• Double Indemnity is based on the 1943 novel of the same name by journalist-turned-novelist James M. Cain. Inspiration for the story came from the murder of Albert Snyder by his wife and her co-conspirator, whose trial Cain covered as a journalist. 

• Despite largely failing as a Hollywood screenwriter, some of Cain’s other works became successful film adaptations, including Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

• The Double Indemnity novel’s ending had Walter and Phyllis meeting up on a cruise ship and jumping off the back, but that had to be changed because suicide as a plot device was forbidden by the Hays Code at the time. Wilder instead shot a scene where Walter is sent to a gas chamber while Keyes watches, but decided against using it after seeing the emotion between the two in the final exchange between the two in what is now the film’s ending. 

• Despite a tumultuous relationship with director Billy Wilder, screenwriter Raymond Chandler appeared in a cameo 16 minutes into the movie, looking up from a magazine as Neff walks past him outside Keyes’ office. Other than a snippet from a home movie, this is the only other known footage of Chandler.

• One of the key factors in getting Hays Office approval for the script was having the two protagonists mortally wound each other so that it was obvious that criminals paid for their transgressions.

  • Ellen: I like that as a turn of the plot, like they really did follow it through to the end of the line and no one gets out alive, but I like it slightly less now that I know it was mandated by card-carrying fuddy-duddies. 

• Wilder and cinematographer John F. Seitz sought to contrast the bright and sunny LA exteriors (shot on location) with the dark and gloomy interiors (shot on sound stages) to emphasize the dirtiness beneath the facade and show who is capable of murder. Wilder would often dirty up sets by overturning ashtrays and blowing aluminum particles in the air to look like dust. Seitz, meanwhile, used “venetian blind lighting” to give the illusion of prison bars trapping the characters.

The Merchant of Death Venice Venetian blinds (Source)

• Actor Fred MacMurray (who plays Walter Neff) had a long and successful acting career, appearing in over 100 movies over nearly fifty years. But here at Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat, we strive to find you some random facts, so we’ll tell you that in the 1970s MacMurray also starred in a series of commercials for the Korean math calculation program chisenbop. Developed in the 1940s before more useful implements like calculators, Microsoft Excel, and the Internet, the chisenbop method made it easier (than an abacus) to add, subtract, multiply, and divide using just one’s hands.

• Edward G. Robinson (who played Neff’s boss, Keyes) played a gangster in the 1927 Broadway play The Racket, whose movie adaptation we covered in a previous ILTBTA post.

• Double Indemnity was nominated for seven Academy Awards, but didn’t win any. (Barbara Stanwyck lost to Ingrid Bergman for her role in previous ILTBTA subject Gaslight.) Paramount, the film’s production studio, had been backing its other big hit, Leo McCarey’s Going My Way, leading it to beat Double Indemnity in award after award. After Going My Way beat Double Indemnity for Best Picture, Wilder stuck his foot out and tripped McCarey as he walked down the aisle to accept the award.

  • Tyler: This is a truly legendary level of pettiness that I can’t help but respect.

  • Ellen: To have been watching the broadcast and see McCarey trip! Love it.

Oscar NomNomNomz

Since we all know a movie is nothing without the food and drink it incorporates.

It’s now time to award the Oscar for Best Snacktor in a Supporting Role⁷. And the nomnomnominees are:

• A glass of iced tea from Mrs. Dietrichson

• A bottle of beer from a drive-in (!)

• Baby food from Jerry's Market

And the Oscar goes to … the baby food from Jerry’s Market! Unfortunately, Walter and Phyllis keep getting in its way, so we will accept this award on its behalf.

Drowning the sorrows of a Best Snacktor loss (Source)

Fill In The Blank

How did we really feel about The Academy nominating this?

Ellen: I’d like to ride through with The Academy straight down the line. What a compelling, funny, nerve-wracking, well-written movie this is! We’re making insurance fraud interesting here, folks, and Richard Gilmore⁸ would be proud. Everyone seemed so well-cast, and they really sold the dialogue and their motivations. It also introduced a visual language that would go on to be copied, referenced, parodied, chopped & screwed for decades to come. It really holds up overall, and I had a heck of a time watching it. Going My Way had better be an absolute banger to have beaten this for Best Picture.

Tyler: I’d like to light a match with my thumbnail for The Academy so they can enjoy their cigarette. From the clever introduction that basically tells you how it ends (effectively replicated years later by Wilder again in Sunset Boulevard) to the intricate details of the murder to the dialogue, the whole movie is just so darn well-written. As you said above, it found a way to make insurance fraud interesting and highly watchable, which is a feat in and of itself. And, as evidenced by the length of Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat, the more I dug into the background of the movie, the more I liked and appreciated its creation.

Let The Credits Roll

Thanks for reading! Some quick housekeeping as you exit the theatre:

• 🚨🚨 New bullet alert 🚨🚨 ILTBTA is now on Letterboxd, the social networking site for movie fans. Follow us there to read our Spreadsheet comments of our ILTBTA movies, plus our ratings of other movies we watch!

• If you have plots and feelings of your own (on the movie or ILTBTA in general), feel free to comment on the post or simply reply to the email. If you liked reading this: tell your friends! If you hated reading this: tell your friends how much you hated it by forwarding it to them!

• If you’re a weirdo like Tyler and use Twitter, feel free to follow us there @BlankTheAcademy for ILTBTA updates, rejected jokes, and other random movie-related musings. Once we reach a million followers, we’ll offer to purchase the @ILTBTA handle from the butthead who snagged it before us.

• If you’d like to start a wild Best Picture journey of your own, feel free to download a copy of The Spreadsheet. Bonus: checking off the boxes is oddly satisfying.

Post-Credits Scene

Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.

With our next post falling on July 4th, we couldn’t help but choose a movie with the holiday literally in the title of the movie: the 1989 Oliver Stone drama, Born on the Fourth of July. Based on the 1976 autobiography of anti-war activist Ron Kovic, BOTFOJ stars Tom Cruise, Kyra Sedgeick, and Willem Dafoe. It is available to stream for free on Netflix and for a fee elsewhere.

Until then, don’t try to outsmart the insurance industry!

1. Sounds like my ex-wife!

2. Tyler: A modern-day remake of this would I guess have Walter typing out a confession … email? A Notes app confession on Instagram Live?

3. Tyler: This takes place over the course of A YEAR?!

4. Idk, there’s got to be something to the fact that his last name is Diet Rich Son?

5. Your author may or may not be hungry.

6.  Well over two million in today’s dollars! One for each of them.

7. Results tabulated and certified by the accountants at Ernst & Yum™.

8. I’ll put a quarter in the Gilmore Girls jar.