The Vanishing Half "Almost" a Great Novel

 

The Vanishing Half (2020)

By Britt Bennett

Riverhead, 345 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

Scholars often claim that race is a social construct, a fiction we choose to believe. If sounds obtuse, read The Vanishing Half. Britt Bennett’s book is a novel, but it speaks a sort of truth. That’s why it tops a lot of lists of the best novels of 2020.

 

The Vanishing Half is a six-part series of vignettes set between 1954 to 1986. Its ground rule is set in the opening chapter. Mallard, Louisiana, is a “black” town with a difference established a century earlier: a scheme to breed away blackness. In Mallard, the whiter one appears, the higher one’s status.

 

The Vigne family bought into this. The problem, though, is the outside world. Lighter skin means something in Mallard, but not much beyond if one looks and acts black. That’s one of the reasons why the four sons of Blake and Adele Vigne are dead by age 30. The girls flee Mallard at age 16, with Stella passing for white, and Desiree moving to Washington, DC, where she works before marrying the dark-skinned Sam Winston. Together they have a daughter, Jude.

 

The Vanishing Half then spans the next 32 years in time. Desiree’s marriage falters and she hides out in Mallard, where her lover is the dark-skinned Early, who was supposed to find her and Jude for Sam. Stella, one the other hand, marries a white Boston banker’s son and settles into a life so bourgeois that she teaches statistics at California college, has a daughter named Kennedy, lives in posh neighborhoods, and even adopts racist attitudes toward African-Americans. It is a story of separations, Jude’s and Kennedy’s as well as Desiree’s and Stella’s. The opening chapter, “The Lost Twins,” makes us wonder if the paths of the two sisters will cross in the future, or whether either will ever again see their mother.

 

The children have crises of their own. Jude partners with Reese, and he has major identity issues. But there is never a question of Jude’s race. Like her father, she is dark-hued, though she certainly has a mind of her own and courage to spare. She eventually parlays her studies at UCLA into a medical degree. Kennedy rebels by becoming an actress, generally not the easiest ticket to a bourgeois life. The novel eventually takes us to New York City at the height of the AIDS crisis.

 

There’s a lot going on in Bennett’s 345-page book–perhaps too much. Like many novelists these days, Bennett tries to check all of the right boxes: race, gender identity, outings of various sorts, poverty, domestic violence, self-doubt, fluffy popular culture, and more. Would a very good novel have been even stronger had Ms. Bennett focused more narrowly? At times, the novel’s six parts function like a long play in which we wait to find out what coheres and what does not.

 

A line from the book’s third part sums its most fascinating exploration. To return to the lede on the social construction of race, Stella muses, “There was nothing to being white except boldness. You could convince anyone you belong somewhere if you acted like you did.” In this respect, The Vanishing Half is a reverse of Mark Twain’s last great novel, Pudd ’n head Wilson, which featured a slave who was white in all but demeanor and circumstance. Bennett infers appearances again when the whip-smart Jude goes to UCLA, but–shades of a Spike Lee rant–on a track scholarship. You might also pick up on long-standing discussions about “high yellow” women (those with light skin) as well as studies on passing for white.

 

If we put these in companion with other themes I mentioned, it means that some get shorter shrift than others. Shuffling too many “big” issues at one time comes fraught with danger. At what point does box checking become oversimplification? To be clear, I liked this book very much, but if pressed to judge whether it’s one of the best of 2020, I’d have to reply, “Almost.”

 

Rob Weir

 

In a Lonely Place Ages Badly

In a Lonely Place (1950)

Directed by Nicholas Ray

Columbia, 94 minutes, Not Rated (pre-ratings system)

★★

 

 

 

In a Lonely Place makes a lot of top 100 films lists and is considered a film noir classic. It doesn’t get that kind of love from me. Although its lead actors, Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame–and several within the supporting cast–are excellent, the film promises a lot, but delivers junk mail.

 

Dixon Steele (Bogart) is a Hollywood screenwriter. To say he has a temper is akin to saying Donald Trump has ego issues. Bogart has his trousers hitched up to just under his breast bone, which might explain his caged tiger explosions. He’s at his favorite restaurant/watering hole one evening trading jaded lines with a drunken pal, Charlie Waterman (Robert Warwick), whom he calls “Thespian,” an allusion to being a washed-up actor. Agent Mel Lippman (Art Smith) has been trying to get Dix, his client, back into screenwriting and tells him he has a producer on the line who only wants a faithful adaptation of a novel. Dix has little interest in reading it, but an enthusiastic hatcheck attendant, Mildred Atkinson, liked the novel a lot. Dix invites her back his to place to tell him about the book rather than read it. The more Mildred talks, the less Dix wants anything to do with the project. She leaves to walk to a nearby cab stand, as Steele eyes a sexy new neighbor.

 

The next morning, Steele gets a call from Brub Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy), who served with Dix during World War Two. Brub is now a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and discovers from him and Captain Lochner (Carl Benton Reid) that Mildred Atkinson was murdered the previous evening. Dix’s complete disinterest in the tragedy makes him a prime suspect in Lochner’s eyes, though Brub doubts it. Luckily, that sexy neighbor, Laurel Gray (Grahame), vouches for having seen Dix staring into her window at the time Mildred was murdered.

 

Is she lying? Again, Dix does little to help deflect suspicion. He and Laurel begin a torrid love affair and, for the first time, Dix contemplates settling down. Several creepy episodes with Brub and his wife Sylvia (Jeff Donnell—“Jeff” is her nickname) and a list of dismissed assault complaints a mile long again casts suspicion on Dix. Laurel is both in love with and scared to death of Dix, who is controlling of her and violent towards others. So, do we have a crime tale or a love story? It’s hard to say. Oddly, for a film about a screenwriter, Andrew Solt’s screenplay is as full of holes as a bum’s sock.

 

Few actors have ever rivaled Bogart when it comes to portraying volatility. As noted when I reviewed The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Bogart easily switched from man to simian. When Laurel says she was initially drawn to him because that she liked his face, we can be sure it wasn’t his devolved countenance. Bogart plays Dix like he’s sitting on the lid of a boiling pot. Grahame, who was married to director Nicholas Ray at the time, is also very good. She’s a tough cookie, but she crumbles at the right moments. Art Smith is superb in a supporting role as a milquetoast agent and Warwick adds comic relief.

 

Normally, those fine performances would cover the leaden ones of Lovejoy, Reid, and Martha Stewart–no, not that one–who cameoed as Mildred. Alas, the film’s cheap psychology and unexplained motives don’t weather well. Solt dropped the ball in several notable places. Why introduce the detail that Dix was Brub’s commanding officer in the war if you’re not going to do anything with it? More seriously, if your central character is as violence-prone as Dixon Steele, shouldn’t there at least be a motive for his anger? Does he have PTSD? Was he jilted? Did he get screwed by the movie industry? Is he an alcoholic? Give us something, for heaven’s sake.

 

In a Lonely Place has a noir look and psyche, but it’s all dressed up and never leaves the apartment complex in which Dix and Laurel reside. It’s a film in which you turn over your hands in a “That’s it?” gesture.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

Bobby March Forever a Gritty Look at Glasgow in 1973

 

Bobby March Will Live Forever (2020)

By Alan Parks

Canongate, 320 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

Have you read all of Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache novels? Looking for something grittier until she writes another? Scottish author Alan Parks might be your cuppa. His is a hardboiled take on crime that’s more Raymond Chandler than Penny–especially if your Glasgow patter is up to snuff.

 

In many ways, Parks’ detective, Harry McCoy, is the anti-Gamache. He has a drinking problem, is morose, has shady friends, acts on impulse rather than reason, is rough-tongued, and hasn’t had a girlfriend since Angela moved out two years ago. Like Gamache, though, he cares little about self-aggrandizement, remains incorruptible amidst cops on the take, and must wend his way around politicians who care more about appearances than truth.

 

Bobby March Will Live Forever is the third installment of Parks’ Harry McCoy novels. It wouldn’t hurt to start with book one, though you can jump right into this one if you’d rather. It is set in 1973 (with flashes back to 1969-70), a time in which Glasgow is awash in drugs, casual violence, hippies, and hippie poseurs. If you’ve been to Glasgow in the past 30 years, you won’t recognize McCoy’s city: slums, dangerous alleyways, shebeens (unlicensed bars), hookers, and men with faces ruined by knife-wielders sending a message from crime bosses. That is, when they’re not corpses instead.

 

If you think you’re having a tough few weeks, try Harry’s on for size. Alice Kelly, a 13-year-old girl, has gone missing. It’s the sort of thing Harry normally investigates but a rival, Bernie Raeburn, has been promoted and takes charge. Raeburn got his advance by being, as they say in Scotland, an arse-licker, and a corrupt one at that. Raeburn’s loathing for Harry is made manifest by handing him low-level assignments. McCoy knows Raeburn is incompetent, but he holds his tongue lest he hand Raeburn an excuse to fire him.

 

The city is in the midst of a heart wave, that leaves Glaswegians sweating and reeling and the press and politicians are screaming for the polis (police) to find Alice. Alas, Harry has lesser fish to fry. He finds rock musician Bobby March dead with a syringe in his arm– a seemingly routine death for a once-promising guitarist whose fame bus left without him –and Harry is supposed to find a missing bag that Bobby’s father would like to have returned. He’s also given robbery files to investigate, which is not his métier and, as if he didn’t have enough to do, his former boss Hector Murray, asks him to look for his 15-year-old niece Laura. It’s off the record, as her father is the Deputy Head of the Glasgow Council and has parliamentary ambitions.

 

Harry is a good detective because he has tons of underworld contacts, not the least of which is Stevie Cooper, a boyhood friend from the same downscale neighborhood. Stevie can now afford the trappings of bourgeois life –courtesy of drug dealing– but he keeps a full stable of thugs close at hand, including one who doubles as his gardener! Stevie owes Harry a few favors, as Harry helped him kick heroin.

 

McCoy, with some help from younger colleague Douglas Watson (“Wattie’), must somehow make sense of all the madness going on around them. Before the dust settles, McCoy has brushes with a Bobby March fanboy, Angela, dope dealers, Wattie’s pushy girlfriend/reporter, a photographer who wants to document Glaswegian poverty, the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, the unwashed and the unhinged, and Raeburn. McCoy will also get the shite kicked out of him a few times.

 

Alan Parks’ style has been described as “tartan noir,” a descriptor that’s both catchy and appropriate. Bobby March Will Live Forever is gritty, violent, and morally ambiguous. It may be too much so for those with mild dispositions, and it will certainly be so for those who like Agatha Christie-like resolutions where everything is tied with a neat bow at the end. Harry McCoy novels are more in the mold of deciding which battles you can win and which ones you probably can’t. Verisimilitude or surrender to nihilism? You decide.

 

Rob Weir

 

Wiktionary has a useful list of Scottish phrases and slang: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_Scottish_slang_and_jargon    

December 2020 Artist of the Month Kris Angelis

 

Kris Angelis is a Florida native who now lives in Los Angeles, where she is an actress and singer/songwriter. Her EP, That Siren, Hope, debuted last January on iTunes, but didn’t make its way to me until October because who the hell uses iTunes anymore? It’s still hanging around the Billboard charts because: (a) It’s really good, and (b) Covid has put a lot of new projects on hold.

 

Let’s focus is on the it’s-really-good part by starting with the title track. It encapsulates the theme of nearly all of the songs on the album and all I can say is, I hope Angelis hasn’t been as unlucky in love as her lyrics suggest: Thought that shine was a lighthouse/But it was that Siren, Hope/She sang me to sleep/She got me to dream/Turns out her song was just a joke. This song sums up some of the album’s potholes on Relationship Road tales, but it should be said that it has a different musical vibe. It opens with muted guitar bass notes and voice before evolving into an evocation of old-time country music as it might have been sung by a hybridized Connie Smith/Connie Francis clone. (The video is slightly different than the version  got.)

 

Most of the rest of her music is in a pop folk vein, with Angelis’ twin sister, Alix, adding harmonies. Angelis prefers to simplify things, which is what one should do when a song is dependent upon a clear voice to communicate emotional impact. “Brighter Blue” is a good example of how Angelis has a knack for being inside a melody rather than outside trying to pry it open. She comes at us from the quiet side, but notice how easily she can air out her voice. It’s a fine song marred only by whoa-ooh-ooh-ahh studio harmonies that have become passé and cliché in indie rock. Not needed!

 

That bump aside, Angelis demonstrates her versatility with two different versions of “Ghost (I’m Alive and Breathing),” the first acoustic and the second with a band. On the acoustic version, she’s a delicate songbird. She ratchets the pace ever so slightly for the ensemble version and sings with more force, as she must within the mix. Both are lovely, and Angelis adds subtle vocal ornaments that embellish but never overwhelm. For the record, it’s about ghosting as in being ignored by an ex-partner, not the incorporeal variety. I prefer the acoustic version, but that’s because I’m a folky at heart. Listen and take your pick. (But why not both?)

 

Angelis returns to love gone off track on “I Hope I Never Fall in Love Again,” a title that says it all and is wrapped in a pretty song with a waltz-like rhythm. “If I Can’t Have What I Want” oozes painful yearning. The link to the title is: Then I’ll want nothing at all/If I can’t have you. “Misplaced Hope” isn’t the album’s concluding track, but maybe it should be. It’s the most hopeful song in the collection and intones: All hope is not lost/It’s just been misplaced. In addition to being a gorgeous song, it has two other things to which one should pay attention. The first is another understated ornament; listen for the small catches in Angelis’ voice. As for the second, I remind you that Kris Angelis is also an actress, which helps explain why there are filmmaking references in the song.*

 

That Siren, Hope is (mostly) a quiet album for the quiet time of the year. Yet, somehow, I suspect Kris Angelis will soon be making bigger noises.

 

Rob Weir

 

* One lyric says, “This film has no foley yet.” Foley artists record or create background sounds that lend a sense of reality to a film. For example, a foley artist might recreate the sound of wind for a shot done on an inside set. Or if a film pirate pulls a sword from its scabbard, it’s likely not to be a deadly one; a foley artist added the effect of steel being pulled through its sheath.  

 

 

December Music II: Divahn, Anthony Garcia, Mercy Bell, The Accidentals

 

I am a fan of Sephardic music for many reasons, not the least of which is that it’s often a pan-Middle Eastern/North African style whose roots lay in times in which Jews and Muslims were more tolerant of one another because they shared exile status. Divahn is a superb practitioner of Sephardic music and their newest album, Shalhevet (“Flame”) will light up your playlist. It is a US-based five-woman ensemble fronted by Galeet Dardashi, who is of Iranian heritage and comes from a famed musical family. She has an enormous voice adorned with many colors. Listen to the ululation in “Oseh Shalom,” which imbues a kaddish (prayer for peace in this context), or “Lecha Dodi,” a piece introduced by Elizabeth Pupo Walker’s Afro-Cuban hand drum solo. Were it not for her percussion and that of Sejal Kukadia’s tabla, you might think you were listening to an innovative jazz ensemble. That’s not far from the mark as several members have jazz backgrounds. This quintet surprises of many levels. “Bann Choshich” is a complex interweave of voices and instruments, and that’s a pretty neat trick given that the only melody instruments are Eleanor Norton’s cello and Megan Gould’s violin. “Ya’alah, Ya’allah” (Urdu for “Lord, Lord”) again displays Dardashi’s stentorian voice, though supplemented by harmonies reminiscent of Balkan singing. For pure fun, it’s hard to beat “Hamavdil,” a (sort of) round. Listen for the little breakout from Kukadia, whose Gatling gun scat-like interlude–in what I believe to be Gujarati–couldn’t be touched by modern rappers with a ten-foot ego.

 

Anthony Garcia is an interesting guy. In addition to speaking five languages, he’s a musical polymath. I tend to sigh when I read PR material that says a performer draws inspiration from sources as diverse as Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, and Led Zeppelin. Though I might temper the last comparison a bit, Garcia strikes those chords–and a few more. Like maybe a Gothic vibe, as his new album Acres of Diamonds often has spooky undertones. Anybody who invokes Alfred Hitchcock–as Garcia does on “Santa Rosa–is dealing dark cards from the deck. It’s an unusual song adorned by Megan Berson’s emotionally enigmatic strings, some near-yodeling from Garcia, heavy guitar turnarounds, and evocations of waiting for the Boatman to carry him back to the land of the living. “Fire” evokes a “Western” song from the days before it was combined with country music. If you want to know where the Led Zep analogies come from, check out Garcia’s guitar work on “Apparitions,” and while you’re at it, notice some fine writing. As the title suggests, memory ghosts appear: Every voice I’ve ever heard and every face I’ve ever seen/Is hanging from the limbs of what they call the Mirror Tree. Garcia goes acoustic for the contemplative “The Wind,” followed by the more lush “Haunted Halls.” We also get some grunge-like jumpiness (“My Hands Are My Eyes”), something akin to a country power ballad (“For Your Love”), and a song that really does sound like something Cohen would have done (“Jane”). Garcia doesn’t quite connect with each of the masks he pulls on–the title track, oddly, is rather ordinary–but give him credit for having the courage to mix things up.

 

Mercy Bell lives in Nashville, by way of California, Boston, and New York. Because she’s now in Music City reviewers are anxious to label her a country star and compare her to Linda Ronstadt, Brandi Carlile, and Sheryl Crow. Never mind that Crow isn’t a country star or that it’s not really fair to saddle someone with a Ronstadt tag. It’s not the only thing reviewers get wrong. She’s also been tagged as Mexican American, when she’s actually half Filipino. Want a label? How about a damn good singer songwriter who–despite titles like “Chocolate Milk and Whiskey” and “All the Good Cowboys”–is really more of a folk artist. The first thing one notices about Bell is the ease with which she sings. She can go big, as she does on her stunning autobiographical song “Black Dress,” but there is nothing forced about her, nor is there a need for vocal gymnastics. You can find most of the tracks from Mercy Bell, which came out in late 2019. I like Bell’s small lyrical twists that get to the heart of things: All the good cowboys know/There ain’t no good ‘ol home sweet home…. A dollar in the jukebox just to dance with you/Oh, but all it does is play the blues. I also liked her song “Skip to the Part” a lot, with the simple linking line where we’re together.  

 

NPR really likes The Accidentals, but I don’t share that enthusiasm–yet. This Michigan-based trio is fronted by Savannah Buist and Katie Larson. Between them, they bust out normal instruments such as guitars and strings, plus a few oddballs like musical saw, kazoo, and glockenspiel. Michael Druse sits in back and bangs the drums. The best song I heard was “Might AsWell Be Gold,” in which the trio turns folky with harmonies blending in pleasing ways. When they add rock elements, as they do on songs such as “Rollercoaster” or “Damascus Blades,” there’s nothing particularly distinctive about them. The louder volume also makes Buist’s and Larson’s voices sound too young for the material. Mostly, they sound like the kind of band I’d like to hear again in a few years with stronger material that integrates their potential versatility.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

Notorious: Hitchcock, Claude Rains, Cary Grant, and Ingrid Bergman (Hooray!)

 

 

Notorious (1946)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

RKO Radio Pictures, 101 minutes, Not-rated (made before ratings system)

★★★★

 

 

 

Alfred Hitchcock, Claude Rains, Cary Grant, and Ingrid Bergman…. What could go wrong? Not a blessed thing, though I am prejudiced. If all Ingrid Bergman did in a movie was sit by a tree and eat a sandwich, I’d watch it.

 

Notorious is more than that. First, it’s a period piece; in the days during and immediately after World War Two, Hollywood made numerous movies with Nazis or ex-Nazis cast as villains. Notorious was one of them. (Bergman also made one in 1942. You might have heard of it: Casablanca.) Second, it’s everything we expect in a film from Hollywood’s Golden Age: glamour, attractive leads, exotic locations, intrigue, and snappy dialogue. These make it easier to overlook contrivances.

 

Bergman is Alicia Huberman, the daughter of an unreconstructed Nazi arrested for espionage in the film’s opening scene. On the surface, Alicia is a world-weary, snarky, and apolitical. Is she? Can she be trusted? That’s a question T. R. Devlin (Grant) needs to assess. He works with the Secret Service* and reports to Captain Paul Prescott (Louis Calhern), with whom he is working on rumors a Nazi enclave in Brazil is working on something “big.” All that is known for certain is that Alicia’s dead father–he committed suicide in prison–had contact with them. Devlin’s job is to recruit Alicia to help crack the case. “Dev” meets Alicia at a party and quickly falls in love with her–how not? –though she warns him she’s not exactly been a Girl Scout in her past. This, not the Nazis, is the source of the film’s title because: (a) It’s 1946, a time in which sexual mores were more restrictive, and (b) It builds tension for what happens next.

 

It’s off to Rio, where Alicia makes contact with Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), a former lover. As Alicia does her job, Dev becomes increasingly jealous and cool toward her. He even gives his go ahead when Alicia tells him and Prescott that Alex has proposed, and ignores her pained expression. If you think that’s where matters end, you really need to watch more classic films!

 

The script for Notorious was written by Ben Hecht, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated writers. He was nominated for six Oscars and won two, including one at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1927. Check out his Wikipedia page and you’ll be stunned by the titles with his name on them. You can thus assume that Notorious has good dialogue, frisson, and twists. It is often called film noir in style and there are elements of that, though I’d call it a noir/spy thriller hybrid. Because it’s a Hitchcock film, you can anticipate there will be skewed perspectives, psychological tension, and things that happen in shadows. For novices, Hitchcock always appears as a split-second cameo in his own films. (I’ll help you this time. Watch the party scene in Alex’s Rio mansion. Hitchcock comes to the table, tosses back a glass of champagne, and walks off camera.)

Hecht was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar for Notorious, but didn’t win. That was just, as without top-shelf acting, the film wouldn’t have worked. Hitchcock famously said that in each of his films there were parts that made no logical sense but, when he made them well, no one noticed. It’s child’s play to find logical inconsistencies in Notorious, most notably the failure of Alex or his Nazi friends to draw conclusions about why Dev is always hanging around when Alicia claimed only to have met on the flight to Rio. Or Alicia’s claim she was forced to kiss Dev when her smooch was obviously not coerced.

 

One watches Notorious because its eye candy is irresistible. Grant and Bergman were beautiful people, and Hitchcock and cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff knew their way around cameras. Notorious is in black and white, but their work helps make the case for those (including me) who argue that it’s often more emotionally impactful than color, especially when one wishes to bathe shots in shadows. The rear projections of Rio suggest another way the world has changed: Notice how relatively empty it was.

 

Notorious is a pas de deux between Grant and Bergman–a ritual of attract-repeal-attract. At several junctures, minor characters remark on what a lovely couple they make. Yes, they do. Rains, though, deserved his Best supporting Actor nomination, as his was the harder part to play. We know he is wrong for Alicia, but Rains has to thread the needle between ruthless Nazi, lovesick husband, and mother’s boy. On that score, Austrian actress Leopoldine Konstantin–better known for silent films– was terrific as Madame Anna Sebastian, Alex’s mother. She turns on a dime from imperious and unapproving mother to Nazi panther.

 

Notorious is usually ranked among the top 100 best films in English. One might argue there are more than 99 better ones, but not I. Because. Ingrid Bergman.

 

Rob Weir

 

* If you wonder why the Central Intelligence Agency wasn’t on the case, it wasn’t founded until 1947.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Double Indemnity a Hollywood Classic

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 29^th 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