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Double Indemnity
Retrospectives
- March 2004
USA, 1944. Directed by Billy Wilder. Written
by Raymond Chandler, Billy Wilder; from the novel by James M. Cain. Photographed
by John Seitz. Edited by . Music by Miklos Rosza. Released by Paramount.
107 minutes.
Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck,
Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Tom Powers, Byron Barr, Richard
Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova.
There is that great interview where Martin Scorsese
talks to Mark Cousins, and he reflects on the atmosphere that dawns as a
cinema screen comes to life. "It's the most magical moment," says Scorsese,
"when you hear the whirring of the projector, and you hear the clicking of
the film going through. This puff of light, and this hot scent, and this
hot light, and the sense of the dust in the beam!"
I don't think I have ever seen "Double
Indemnity" in a cinema, and more's my peril. This is a movie that
exists for the puff of light, and the hot scent, and the sense of the dust
in the beam. One day I will see it in 35mm -- it's much beloved, it has been
restored by the BFI, and film prints do get out there now and again. For
the time being I will sit in my own darkened rooms, with cups of black coffee
and far too many cigarettes, absorbing the aura as best I can through smoke
drifting, the dialogue crackling and the shadows throwing their reflections
along the room and across my face.
This is the ultimate film noir crime picture;
better than "The Big Sleep", better than "The Maltese Falcon", better than
"Kiss Me Deadly". It proved that these movies don't need the schedules of
detectives or the convolutions of mysteries for them to sizzle with intrigue,
or draw us into the worlds of their cynical, world-weary heroes. The movie
is about an average guy: Walter Neff, "insurance salesman, 35 years old,
unmarried, no visible scars… until a while ago, that is."
He's doomed from the start of the film, walking
into his office at night, with nobody around except the elevator guy and
the boys cleaning out the trash. He limps, and he clasps his hand to his
chest, trying to hide a bullet wound with his overcoat. Into a dictaphone,
he records his story: "Yes, I killed him. I did it for money. And for a woman.
And I didn't get the money. And I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't
it?"
As "Double Indemnity" delves into its flashbacks,
and shows Neff hook up with Phyllis Dietrichson, a femme fatale with a husband
to spare and questions about accident insurance, we see what the censors
called "a blueprint for murder". Walter and Phyllis will take out the insurance
in secret; the husband will sign it because he thinks he's updating the policy
on his cars. They'll break his neck, and put the body on a train track --
accidental death from a moving train is rare, and in the event, the policy
will pay out double. Walter has known the business for eleven years; he'll
know how to iron out the details.
Do we look at them in horror? Do we root for them
to succeed? Not the point. The opening scene has told us the outcome, and
the story unfolds with the inevitability of tragedy. Oh, Walter is likeable
-- Fred MacMurray was a comedy star, who got cast in this part after Alan
Ladd and George Raft turned it down. He has a lightness of manner and plainness
of face that makes him an instant everyman. There are moments along the way
where we do get a certain satisfaction from the idea that he might not get
found out: Edward G. Robinson gave a legendary performance as Keyes, the
brilliant claims manager who goes by his gut, which gets in knots straight
away when phoney claims pass along the desk. When Keyes gets called into
the office of a company executive who refuses to believe the Dietrichson
claim is real, Keyes lets him have it: "You've never read an actuarial table
in your life, have you? Why, we've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide
by race, by colour, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time
of day. Suicide, how committed -- by poisons, by firearms, by drowning, by
leaps, by poison; by types of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic,
gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein and so forth. Suicide by leaps! Subdivided
by leaps from high places; under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of
trucks, under the feet of horses! From steamboats! But Mr. Norton -- of all
the cases on record, there's not one case of suicide by leap from the rear
end of a moving train. And do you know how fast that train was going at the
point the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump
off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would
kill himself? No. No soap, Mr. Norton. We're going to have to pay through
the nose. We're sunk -- and you know it!"
Bits like that give Neff some relief; they're
funny, they lighten the mood, and we get lost in them. Soon enough, though,
there always comes a scene that reminds us of the road the characters are
on. Keyes is visited by Jackson, supposedly the last man to see Mr. Dietrichson
alive, but actually the one who saw Walter posing as him on the train. He
comes in, looks at Dietrichson's pictures, says it's not the guy he got a
look at. He doesn't recognise Neff -- not quite -- but look at Neff's eyes,
and you can see the look of a man whose comfort zones are crumbling in front
of his face.
This story, a march toward doom, is the perfect
framework to surround with noir atmosphere -- snappy, witty speech tinged
by darkness of experience, perfect compositions filled with deep blacks,
shadows and smoke, and cool little ticks like the way MacMurray pulls matches
out of his pocket and lights them with his thumb. And there, in a blonde
wig and a collection of slinky dresses, stands Barbara Stanwyck in the role
of Phyllis Dietrichson -- Stanwyck, a screen goddess without one obvious
attractive physical feature, who was sexy because of that purring voice,
that puppy fat that she wore like it was meant for your head to be rested
in, and those dangerous glances, which meet MacMurray's and never let
go.
Sooner or later in every murder conspiracy tale
comes a line that reminds us of "Macbeth"; "It's not our heads, it's our
nerve we're losing," plays like "Screw your courage to the sticking-place,
and we'll not fail." By the time things reach that pitch, it's too late.
Walter has been seduced by Phyllis, through those glances, the smell of
honeysuckle, the way she matches his come-ons. "Will you be here too?" asks
he, at the end of their first meeting. "I guess so, I usually am," says she.
He: "Same chair, same perfume, same anklet?" She: "I wonder if I know what
you mean." He: "I wonder if you wonder."
Movie lovers get a tingle when we hear things
like that for the first time. We realise we're in the grip of greatness,
with flavours and exchanges that hit home as unknown pleasures we feel we've
always been waiting for. The picture had a troubled production history, what
with the casting of MacMurray, the time it took Billy Wilder to get the project
into a workable screenplay and the cutting of a last act, where Walter was
shown going to the gas chamber. Further evidence, I shouldn't wonder, that
sometimes the most classic things in cinema come out of happy accidents.
"Double Indemnity" is one of those fallback movies that you run to when you
want to remind yourself how perfection tastes -- it drips with visual moodiness,
throws out dazzling wit and drama, and it has the fascination of watching
a man make the darkest gamble possible. And there's a sadness running through
it, too, because of the beauty of Walter's relationship with Keyes, and how
he abandons a father figure of savvy professionalism to make a deal with
the Devil. Of course, we all know that we couldn't do what Walter does. Even
though, sometimes, being in a situation blinds you to how impossible that
situation is. And sometimes there's a smell of honeysuckle in the air. And
if you wonder if she wonders…
COPYRIGHT©
2004 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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