Film - Double Indemniyty

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## The style of "film noir".

## How the story is plotted.

## Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray's acting - how they chose each movement.


 

 

 

Double Indemniyty
Directed by     Billy Wilder
Produced by     Buddy DeSylva  Joseph Sistrom
Screenplay by     Billy Wilder  Raymond Chandler
Starring     Fred MacMurray  Barbara Stanwyck  Edward G. Robinson
Release dates     September 6, 1944
Running time     107 minutes
Country     United States
Language     English

 

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This work is based on a real case and it is considered as a model of “film noir”.
Starting with recollection, crime, adultery and use of mise-en-scene all back-up and strengthen the storyboard.
The story takes place in LA where a successful insurance salesperson, Walter Neff, comes into his office in the middle of the night and confess to reveal his guilt.
He meets Phyllis Dietrichson, an appealing housewife who wants to get rid of his husband and inherit his property. He rejects once as a salesperson, but he is in love with her already at a first glance. In his monologue, he talks about her anklet a few times to show how he is obsessed with her. He even asks her about the anklet, and this is not something a salesperson talks about at their first acquaintance with a customer. Apparently he wanted to get to know her personal life and possibly have an adultery relationship with her.
They have an affair covertly and agree to get rid of her husband.
He suggests to kill him camouflaging a train accident that builds up double indemnity in life insurance.
Neff is aware subconsciously, that somehow this is not going to work, but he cannot get off from the track lined by Phyllis.
Neff kills Dietrichson on his way to the station. Phyllis, who is driving a car, never changes her expression whilst the atrocity.
Walter Neff’s coworker, Barton Keyes, is a shrewd claims manager. Keyes thinks this case is a murder and not an accident nor suicide.
Neff’s friendship with Keyes struggles himself. He tries to relieve Dietrichson’s daughter, Lola, a stepchild to Phyllis, and she reveals her doubt towards Phyllis. Phyllis has something in mind further more and Neff notices that she wants to get rid of Neff.
He visits Phyllis to persuade her, but gets shot instead, on his arm. However, she cannot shoot him fatally and he kills her instead.
After he comes out of Dietrichson’s, he sees Nino Zachetti, Lola’s boyfriend who is almost taking a false step, and tells him to turn around and never go into this house.
Neff goes back to his office to confess, and Keyes is watching him at the door.
The whole story seems beyond salvation.
No one seems to be happy eventually. Phyllis is killed in the story and Neff will probably be hanged. She is a typical femme-fatal, who ruins every man’s life involved her, but eventually in vain. Her step daughter, Lola, gets her real father killed, and Keyes has to find his good friend a killer and his exploitation.
However, there are some hopes.
Phyllis cannot kill him because of love, even though she knows she would be shot dead by Neff.
Neff could have let Nino gone into the house so that he himself would be saved, since Keyes does not think Neff is involved in this case as a murderer. Nino would be the one who killed both Mr. and Mrs.Dietrichson if he has gone into the house. But Neff cannot let him go in.
It might give a slight salvation to the audience.
Neff is completely out of track, killed two people already, but still is able to save someone else. It seems the director’s declaration that to give a chance to a youngster is an obligation of adults, no matter how their status is.
It should be noted that everyone in this film is “imperfect” in any sense.
Neff canoot become a total villain and this saves Nino in the end.
Phyllis does not stick to her role as femme-fatal but loves Neff, and that kills herself.
Keyes is a most capable person in his film but make mistake in one point, considering Nino is the murderer.
Nino, who willingly tries to be off-track, is not a complete villain.
Mr.Dietrichson is a rich man working hard to support his family, but he is incapable of handling his own life.
Even a man who opens the door for Neff, at the beginning of the story, cannot get insured by the company, because of his illness.
Lola is probably the only “perfect” person even though she nearly loses her boyfriend.
There are different characters that they are supposed to be, but the each character is fluid and not “proto type”.
It shows complex and difficult human nature and gives more depth to the work itself.
In addition, this is not a story of man who got into a nest of femme-fatal.
Neff always thought about how a crime can be succeeded, he says.  It is subtle, but he also had this omen towards crime, even though the trigger is honeysuckle and anklet.  It implies that tragedy does not fall onto a person all of a sudden, but something is definitely undegoing before that.
The whole storyboard seems quite simple, but well plotted by Wilder.
A novelist Raymond Chandler also joined in screen writing and some elegant and witty phrases can be seen.
Wilder is good at using hand props, fire for instance, in this film.
All through the story while Neff is in the “controlling” position, he is the one who light Keyes’s cigars. But After confession, when their position is in reverse, Keyes lights Neff’s cigarette, in order to show their role has been changed.
Some scenes are “shown”, not “told”, but others are obviously “told” by phrases and apparently it is by Chandler. When Neff first goes into the Dietrichson’s, there is a monologue stating how lavish the property is. In addition, Neff’s obsession towards her can be seen his statement on her anklets. Audience can tell visually and literally and this is apparently a marvelous collaboration by Wilder and Chandler.
This film opened up a new possibility for both film and literature in American culture as well as film noir.