Double Indemnity (1944)
Directed by Billy Wilder
Paramount, 107 minutes, Not-rated (pre-ratings system)
★★★★
It was 1944, and the studio system whereby actors were bound to a particular employer for the life of their contracts was waning but remained in place. Paramount Studios wanted to expand Fred MacMurray’s bankability by casting him as an amoral character. What better way to sully his nice guy image than to give him top dog billing in a gritty film noir movie? Edward G. Robinson reportedly balked when Paramount asked him to play a supporting role. He need not have worried, as he stole the film!
Director Billy Wilder brought MacMurray and Robinson together with Hollywood legend Barbara Stanwyck for a film that earned seven Oscar nominations. It didn’t win any, but it’s now listed by the American Film Institute (AFI) as the 29th greatest American film of all time. That’s debatably too high, but it’s certainly a gem. The idea came a book written by James Cain of an actual 1927 murder, and the screenplay was handed off to Raymond Chandler. He knew a few things about gritty tones and was responsible for the film’s hardboiled language.
Walter Neff (MacMurray) is a Los Angeles insurance salesman and the protégé of Barton Keyes (Robinson), who ferrets out fraud for the firm. On his rounds, Neff swings by a well-appointed home to remind Dietrichson (Tom Powers), a rich client, that his auto insurance has lapsed. Dietrichson isn’t home, but Neff instead meets his younger, second wife, Phyllis (Stanwyck). Sexual frisson begins the moment Neff spies her ankle bracelet as descends the staircase wearing a dressing gown. Insurance gives way to open flirtation and before you can say “murder!” Walter and Phyllis are lovers plotting the demise of her husband. A can’t-be-bothered husband, a little salesmanship, and a dollop of chicanery results in Dietrichson’s unknowing signature on a $50,000 life insurance policy with a “double indemnity clause” that pays out $100,000–more than $1.8 million in 2019 dollars–should he die an accidental death. All Walter and Phyllis have to do is plan that “accident,” execute it, and lie low until the money is paid out. Like that ever happens!
There is a subplot involving Lola (Jean Heather), Dietrichson’s daughter from his deceased first wife. She is naïve and good-hearted, but also a spoiled and willful young woman involved with a man named Nino Zachetti (Bryon Barr), who can’t make up his mind if he’s a suitor, a chauvinist pig, or an empty-headed punk. Frankly, neither actor is very good, and Heather is actively horrible. (She had one previous movie credit and never had another after Double Indemnity.) Porter Hall appears in a semi-comedic role as an unexpected witness (of sorts). His performance comes close to being over the top, though he does provide a ray of sunshine amidst the noir. Those three roles lead me to dispute the AFI ranking, although Double Indemnity is essentially a three-person movie.
MacMurray played against type with enough aplomb that occasional meaty dramatic roles later came his way. Some may recall his stint as Tom Keefer in The Caine Mutiny, though he settled back into easy-going roles such as widower TV dad in My Three Sons. Stanwyck was already a Hollywood legend by 1944, and would remain so for the remaining 20 years of her movie career. She played the scheming Phyllis Dietrichson with antiseptic calm and icy cruelty. Few, however, could have predicted that Robinson would be the member of the troika with the smallest but most memorable part. He is such a bundle of neurotic energy that when he complains of pains in his gut, we first suspect ulcers. It’s not; it’s the gnawing intuition that gets under his skin when he suspects a scam but hasn’t yet figured out the angle. Robinson grabs us long before we find out his role in the mystery. Thus, when he tells Walter he suspects Phyllis had her husband bumped off, but people who think they can get away with murder are on a one-way trolley ride that ends at the cemetery, our hearts jump before Neff’s does.
Okay, so maybe Double Indemnity is slightly overrated. Still, acting like that of MacMurray, Stanwyck, and Robinson elevate even lousy movies. Double Indemnity is not one of the latter. It is a genuine American classic.
Rob Weir
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