Double Indemnity (1944): Film Noir after Seventy-Five Years

September 6, 1944, release date

Directed by Billy Wilder

Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler

Based on the novel Double Indemnity by James M. Cain

Music by Miklós Rószsa

Edited by Doane Harrison

Cinematography by John Seitz

Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff

Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson

Edward G. Robinson as Barton Keyes

Porter Hall as Mr. Jackson

Jean Heather as Lola Dietrichson

Tom Powers as Mr. Dietrichson

Byron Barr as Nino Zachetti

Richard Gaines as Edward S. Norton, Jr.

Fortunio Bonanova as Sam Garlopis

John Philliber as Joe Peters

Raymond Chandler as man reading a magazine (cameo)

Bess Flowers as Norton’s secretary

Betty Farrington as Nettie, the Dietrichson’s maid

Teala Loring as Pacific All-Risk Insurance telephone operator

Sam McDaniel as Charlie, the garage attendant

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Produced by Paramount Pictures

Billy Wilder directed many great films, some of which happen to be my personal favorites: Sunset Boulevard (1950), starring Gloria Swanson and William Holden; Some Like It Hot (1959), starring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis; The Apartment (1960), starring Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. I have seen these films numerous times, but I hadn’t seen Double Indemnity for the first time, from beginning to end, until earlier this year.

My sister couldn’t believe that I call myself a fan of noir and I hadn’t seen the film for so long. I find it a little hard to believe myself. I often like to say that I prefer the book to the film and that I want to read the book before I see the film version. But I had read James M. Cain’s book, and I still balked at seeing the film for the longest time. And now that I have seen Double Indemnity, I see that it deserves all the praise that is directed its way. But I must confess that I struggled with writing this blog post.

It has to do with the actor playing the male lead: Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff. MacMurray is wonderfully slimy as Jeff D. Sheldrake, C. C. Baxter’s (Jack Lemmon’s) boss who offers career advancement in The Apartment only if Baxter allows his apartment to be used as a love nest for company executives. But I just cannot see MacMurray as a romantic lead or as an homme fatale. Did his starring role in the television series My Three Sons (1960–1972) ruin him as a man capable of dangerous passion? It may be part of the reason, but I am not entirely convinced. I have seen MacMurray in Borderline, a film noir in which he is paired with Claire Trevor, and I think he succeeds as a romantic lead in that film. I suspect, however, that some of the credit may be attributed to Trevor because she is fantastic in everything in which she appears. And MacMurray’s part in Borderline didn’t require lust and a lack of ethics.

(This blog post about Double Indemnity, both the novel and the film, contains spoilers.)

James M. Cain’s novel Double Indemnity, the story that is the basis for the film, is hard to beat for its noir characteristics, specifically its lack of redemption for all its characters. (Click here for my blog post about James M. Cain’s novel.) If I had to choose between the novel and the film (if I were stranded on a deserted ship and forced to lighten my load to avoid sinking!), I would have to pick the novel. It is pessimistic, it is bleak, it is thoroughly noir.

The ending is but one example of why I like the book more: Barton Keyes arranges an escape to Mexico via ship for Walter Huff (Walter Neff’s name in the novel), but instead Huff finds himself on board a ship that is also carrying Phyllis Nirdlinger (Phyllis Dietrichson’s name in the novel). Keyes had arranged both Phyllis’s and Walter’s ship passages; he wants to get rid of them rather than sully the name of the insurance company, his employer, by prosecuting a crime, murder, committed by one of its employees, namely, Huff. The ending isn’t stated explicitly, but Huff seems resigned to following Nirdlinger overboard into shark-infested waters because neither one of them have any other options other than the death penalty. And death by shark would be decidedly quicker than navigating the legal system.

Billy Wilder made some changes to the story in the novel because the Motion Picture Production Code, also known as the Hays code, that prevailed in the film industry at the time wouldn’t allow the subject of suicide and other topics deemed sensitive by the censors to be portrayed on-screen. (Click here for a discussion of the production code in relation to four of Wilder’s films, including Double Indemnity, at the blog site Dial M for Movies.) In the film, Barton Keyes does catch up with Walter Neff and learns that he is responsible for the murders of both Phyllis and her husband, but he is deeply disappointed because he considers Walter a friend and is rather fond of him. Keyes’s interest in Neff struck me as paternal; he takes an interest in his career path, for example, when he suggests that Neff become a claims adjustor and join his department.

In his commentary on the DVD, film historian Richard Schickel maintains that the most important relationship in the film is not the one between Phyllis and Walter but the one between Walter and Barton Keyes. Lem Dobbs states the same in the commentary he almost shares with Nick Redman (I say “almost” because Dobbs does almost all the talking), although Dobbs feels that the relationship between the two is based on an equal footing and not a father-son dynamic. But these observations just emphasize how hard it is for me to see Fred MacMurray as a man capable of passion. His portrayal of Walter Neff just doesn’t make me believe there is any lustful passion involved. Walter Neff wants the money; he wants to prove that he can beat the insurance industry at its own game. But I’m not sure he wants Phyllis Dietrichson quite as much.

Double Indemnity has earned high praise from many, and my copy of the film on DVD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment comes with not one but two audio commentaries: one by Richard Schickel and one by film historians Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman. The seventy-fifth anniversary of the film’s release has received plenty of attention. Click here for an example from National Public Radio (NPR).

Many film noir scholars consider Double Indemnity to be the first true film noir, the first in a genre that was yet to be named when the film was released in 1944, seventy-five years ago. Film noir is a category that is very difficult to define, however, and people define it in different ways. Even trying to define a film noir period is difficult to do. Click here for a different opinion published by The Guardian: “After The Maltese Falcon: How Film Noir Took Flight.”

There is no doubt, however, that Double Indemnity stands up to scrutiny after seventy-five years (eighty-three years for the novel). Even after several decades, the stories in both the print and film versions are absorbing, and I think it’s because they focus on the relationships among the characters. With the novel, readers can imagine the setting anyway they want to; with the film, the out-of-date styles for just about everything—from clothes to cars, even to office furniture—are clear and obvious. Yet the story still commands attention. In his audio commentary, Richard Schickel maintains that the changes to the novel for the screenplay owe their cohesion and success mostly to Billy Wilder, that he was the one who kept the focus on the characters and especially on the relationship between Walter Neff and Barton Keyes. I have to agree, and Schickel’s points are probably some of many reasons why Double Indemnity still appeals to so many fans after seventy-five years.

This blog post about Double Indemnity is my entry for the Classic Movie Blog Association’s 2019 Fall Blogathon: The Anniversary Blogathon. It’s a celebration of ten years of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Click here for the complete list of blogathon participants and links to their entries.

Double Indemnity (Book) (1936)

Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain

New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1978

Originally published in serial form in 1936

List of main characters:

Walter Huff, insurance salesman for General Fidelity of California

Phyllis Nirdlinger

Lola Nirdlinger, Phyllis’s stepdaughter

Beniamino “Nino” Sachetti, Lola’s boyfriend

Keyes, head of the Claim Department at General Fidelity of California

Old Man Norton, founder of General Fidelity of California

The image above is of the back and front covers of the version, published in 1978, that I read. All page references are from the 1978 edition.

My sister cannot believe that I call myself a fan of noir and I have never seen the film version of Double Indemnity in its entirety. (Until a few months ago, I hadn’t seen any of it at all!) I find it a little hard to believe myself, and I’m not sure why I balk at finally seeing it from beginning to end. I often like to say that I prefer the book to the film and that I want to read the book before I see the film version. But now I have no excuse: I have read James M. Cain’s book, and the film has to be added to the queue, right? With all that I have heard about the film starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, I imagine it will be just as good as the book.

Walter Huff is an insurance salesman for General Fidelity of California, and he uses his knowledge of the insurance industry to try to game it. He knows about double indemnity; it fits into his scheme to make money via murder. He meets Phyllis Nirdlinger by chance one day, while he’s out visiting clients and potential clients. One of those clients is Phyllis’s husband, but Huff notices Phyllis right away at the Nirdlingers’ home, and he is unwittingly drawn into her web, not the other way around. Huff begins to have an idea that he is in deep, but he can’t seem to pull away:

I live in a bungalow in the Los Feliz hills. . . . It was raining that night, so I didn’t go out. I lit a fire and sat there, trying to figure out where I was at. I knew where I was at, of course. I was standing right on the deep end, looking over the edge, and I kept telling myself to get out of there, and get quick, and never come back. But that was what I kept telling myself. What I was doing was peeping over that edge, and all the time I was trying to pull away from it, there was something in me that kept edging a little closer, trying to get a better look. (page 18)

Fate, it seems, is drawing Walter in; his attraction to Phyllis Nirdlinger, the femme fatale of the story, helps keep him trapped.

(This blog post about the novel Double Indemnity contains spoilers.)

Walter is given another chance to see what he is getting into, and the clue comes from Phyllis herself. She seems a little more unhinged than might be expected of a cold and calculating wife when she and Walter have the following conversation, before the murder of Phyllis’s husband:

“He’s [Mr. Nirdlinger] not happy. He’ll be better off—dead.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s not true, is it?”

“Not from where he sits, I don’t think.”

“I know it’s not true. I tell myself it’s not true. But there’s something in me, I don’t know what. Maybe I’m crazy. But there’s something in me that loves Death. I think of myself as Death, sometimes. In a scarlet shroud, floating through the night. I’m so beautiful, then. And sad. And hungry to make the whole world happy, by taking them out where I am, into the night, away from all trouble, all unhappiness. . . . [ellipsis points in the original] Walter, this is the awful part. I know this is terrible. I tell myself it’s terrible. But to me, it doesn’t seem terrible. It seems as though I’m doing something that’s really best for him, if he only knew it. Do you understand me, Walter?”

“No.”

“Nobody could.”

“But we’re going to do it.”

“Yes, we’re doing [sic] to do it.”

“Straight down the line.”
                “Straight down the line.” (pages 23–24)

But Walter Huff is no match for his partner in crime, Phyllis Nirdlinger. And he’s definitely no match for Keyes, the head of the Claim Department at General Fidelity of California. Phyllis’s words, highlighted in purple above, are echoed by Keyes when he describes how he’s going to help Huff leave the country. By this point, Huff has confessed his crime to Keyes, who is no fool. He knows that the protracted media coverage of a murder trial for a salesman at General Fidelity will be very bad publicity. So he concocts his own plan to get rid of Walter Huff and Phyllis Nirdlinger, too. Keyes arranges passage for Huff on a steamer heading south, and he even gets Huff to agree to write out a statement detailing his part in all the events leading up to his being shot by Phyllis and then hospitalized. Walter isn’t even aware of Keyes’s ulterior motives right away:

“O. K. on the statement, Keyes.”

“It’s the best way.”

“O. K. on everything. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me.”

“I feel that way.”

“You’ve got no reason to thank me.” A funny look came in his eyes. “I don’t think they’re going to catch up with you, Huff. I think—well maybe I’m doing you a favor at that. Maybe you’d rather have it that way.” (page 122)

Huff has heard similar words, a similar warning, once before, but he doesn’t catch on until he’s on the steamer heading past Mexico:

What you’ve just read, if you’ve read it, is the statement. It took me five days to write it, but at last, on Thursday afternoon, I got it done. That was yesterday. I sent it out by the orderly to be registered, and around five o’clock Keyes dropped by for the receipt. It’ll be more than he bargained for, but I wanted to put it all down. Maybe she’ll [Lola Nirdlinger] see it some time, and not think so bad of me after she understands how it all was. Around seven o’clock I put on my clothes. I was weak, but I could walk. After a bite to eat I sent for a taxi and went down to the pier. I went to bed right away, and stayed there till early this afternoon. Then I couldn’t stand it any longer, alone there in the stateroom, and went up on deck. I found my chair and sat there looking at the coast of Mexico, where we were going past it. But I had a funny feeling I wasn’t going anywhere. I kept thinking about Keyes, and the look he had in his eye that day, and what he meant by what he said. Then, all of a sudden, I found out. I heard a little gasp beside me. Before I even looked I knew who it was. I turned to the next chair. It was Phyllis. (pages 122–123)

After Walter Huff starts plotting a murder with Phyllis and before he writes his confession statement for Keyes, he meets Phyllis’s stepdaughter, Lola. Before too long, he decides that he is in love with Lola, not Phyllis. (Cain pursued a similar theme—a lover switching his affections from mother to daughter—in Mildred Pierce.) This change in his affections doesn’t change his murder plans; it just complicates them a bit. He starts to feel guilty—but not too guilty—about killing Lola’s father.

Click here to see my post about Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford. Click here to see my post about Cain’s book and the television series based on it.

Walter Huff is clueless, right until the end: about Keyes, about Phyllis, and about Lola Nirdlinger. It’s hard to believe that Lola would understand his story and why he did what he did. But he seems convinced that Lola will see his point of view.

Maybe it really was fate that he and Phyllis met and concocted their murderous scheme. They certainly deserved one another. I knew that when I finished reading Walter Huff’s story, but I still wondered about Lola Nirdlinger: What part, if any, did she play in Keyes’s scheme to get rid of Walter Huff and Phyllis Nirdlinger? We know Lola only through Walter’s perspective, and it’s obvious that he is not a good judge of character. That ambiguity about the ending is one of many factors that make Double Indemnity such a good noir read.