“Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and a woman. Only I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?”
This Dietrichson Business
As a pillar of both cinematic noir foundation and Billy Wilder’s immense skill as a writer and director, Double Indemnity stands as a formative establishment of the genre’s iconography, even eighty-two years after its release. Matching Wilder and his writing partner Raymond Chandler’s rapacious wit to this sinister story of murder, lust, and deceit creates a vividly enticing, yet comedically charged cinematic experience that deserves its place among some of cinema’s greats.
“You Said It Was Murder…check”
The history of Double Indemnity‘s legacy starts in 1927, fittingly, with a murder. When Ruth Snyder, married to Albert Snyder, along with her lover attempted to convince an insurance agent to put out an insurance policy under her husband’s name without his knowledge, things didn’t go all to plan. Snyder secretly took out a double indemnity insurance clause, stating the payout would be expanded in the event of a rare act of violence resulting in death. After seven failed murder attempts and an eventual poorly conceived death involving a staged burglary, Ruth and her affair partner, Henry Judd Gray, were caught, convicted, and sentenced to death.
In 1943, crime novelist James M. Cain used this true crime story to create his fictionalized account in novel form. Though with a darker tone and intense ending that would be shifted in the film, Cain had a hard time getting this script past the Hays Office, with censor Joseph Breen stating:
“The general low tone and sordid flavor of this story makes it, in our judgment, thoroughly unacceptable for screen presentation before mixed audiences in the theater. I am sure you will agree that it is most important…to avoid what the code calls ‘the hardening of audiences,’ especially those who are young and impressionable, to the thought and fact of crime.”
Then, after multiple denials and some eventual changes from the novel, Cain got through and landed with Billy Wilder to pen and eventually direct this crime story.
A Tramp from a Long Line of Tramps
Though the Hays Code refusals may have been dramatic towards a lot of cinematic potential, the hoops Wilder and writing partner Raymond Chandler had to jump through to clean things up may have helped to make this movie as memorable as it is. As one example, Cain’s original ending included the main players, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), committing a double suicide in the wake of their capture. Instead of this overly bleak finale, Wilder and Chandler manage a workaround to humanize both Walter and Phyllis in their final moments. Phyllis, unable to kill Walter after her grand plan, and Walter’s guilt-ridden confession culminate in his realization of his friendship with Keyes. It’s additions like this, along with Wilder’s charming wit and seductive dialogue, that help to make Double Indemnity the gripping and alluring experience to this day.
But it’s also in how Wilder and Chandler tweaked noir conventions to keep this story uniquely exciting all these years later. Thankfully, even with the Hays and Production Code battles, Double Indemnity remains based on adult noir foundations. Sex, murder, and insurance fraud play just as thrillingly as some unnamed MacGuffin can and have firmer roots in a more conceivable reality. It’s the fact that the realism of the criminality is emphasized in this story, placing a base of truth in the actions committed by Neff and Dietrichson, that makes this whole incident seem all too possible. Double Indemnity showed that noir films don’t have to be beholden to the conventions of what came before and can even get at more potent truths when further steeped in realism.
The Walk of a Dead Man
As insurance processes and criminal conspiracies have only expanded since this movie’s release back in 1944, it’s pretty impressive to consider how well Double Indemnity has aged. While noirs about private detectives, lost treasures, and underground mobs can still pull plenty of intrigue, a case like this remains eerily prescient and starkly plausible. Plus, its reliance on an actual event puts it into the true crime category, a sub-genre that would positively boom come the late 2000s.
While staying ahead of a general audience’s morbid curiosity in true crime, Wilder also manages to give a surprisingly cynical vision to the uplifting ambition of California. Wilder would expand on this concept more with his 1950 film, Sunset Boulevard, but still manages to undercut the hopeful, sunny nature that often comes associated with the setting here as well. The L.A. streets at night have a more sour tone as Neff rushes through them to make his confession, a quaint supermarket turned sinister as this secretive meeting place, and the maze of insurance desks seem built to appear as a conspiracy themselves, working to keep fraud and criminality rigidly locked away in its bureaucratic halls. Though it can be subtle, it sets a perfect tone throughout to keep this story tense.
Having eighty-two years of L.A. glamorization since Double Indemnity’s release has only helped to deepen this strange relationship Wilder has with the city. We can look at it now with its flashy Hollywood and theatrical roots, but movies like this can help to remind us about the festering underbelly of this seemingly sunny setting.
I Wonder if You Wonder…
Planting its roots deep into the noir genre and maintaining its prestige cinema status all these decades later, it’s not a surprise that Double Indemnity belongs in the Screenage Wasteland Canon. Its immaculate writing, smart pacing, wonderful performances, and a clever framing device are just a few of the reasons this works so well, but it also cuts into the core we have as humans: morbid curiosity and the knowledge of inner workings that let us think we can dupe the system.
Still, Double Indemnity remains a perfect display of how effective guilt is as a detractor and its invasive effects on a conflicted mind. Plus, whether it’s your first or hundredth time watching this one, you can’t deny the power of Edward G. Robinson’s Keyes and his “little man”. I’d have watched sequel after sequel of this if he were involved.
Lally, Kevin. Wilder Times. H. Holt, 1996. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/wildertimeslifeo00lall/page/125/mode/2up
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