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Barbara Stanwyck is the dark force beyond Fred MacMurray in Wilder's classic Double Indemnity |
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Fred MacMurray (Walter Neff), Barbara Stanwyck
(Phyllis Dietrichson), Edward G. Robinson (Barton Keyes), Porter Hall (Mr
Jackson), Jean Heather (Lola Dietrichson), Tom Powers (Mr Dietrichson), Bryon
Barr (Nina Zachett), Richard Gaines (Edward Norton)
In the wake of the Second World War, morally complex and
dark (in every sense of the word) stories spoke to a nation coming to terms
with what it had been through. Out of this was born a new genre: film noir. Double Indemnity might just be the best
example and one of Billy Wilder’s best films.
Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is a bored insurance salesman,
smitten with the sexually alluring Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), wife
of a potential client. When she suggests that, with his help, they could get
rid of her husband and collect a massive insurance payout on his death, Neff is
quickly won over. But murder is a hard thing to get away with – particularly
when Neff’s colleague and close friend Barton Keyes (Edward G Robinson), the
best investigator in the business, smells something amiss in the ‘accident’.
Double Indemnity
is one of those films that it’s easy to forget was as influential as it was,
precisely because it’s narrative and filmic techniques have been so
comprehensively imitated in a host of films since. But imagine: this was one of
the very first real film noirs. It was one of the first films that used shadows
and darkness as effectively as this to reflect mood and atmosphere. It was the
one of the first films to use a femme
fatale as prominently (and unapologetically) as this. It’s also one of the
first films where sex permeates almost everything
you see in the picture.
Phyllis is a woman who understands the power of sensuality,
who is well aware of how she can use her body and aloof mystery to get what she
wants out of men. But even more than that, Stanwyck’s wonderfully cold
performance suggests she hardly seems to care about anything at all: in fact
the impression is almost that she is locked into moving forward, passing
through husbands and lovers, leaving men dead on the wayside. That’s the magic
of Stanwyck in this film: can you remember a character as unremittingly,
unapologetically sinful, manipulative and conscience-free as this?
Of course Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff is the perfect rube
for this fiercely intelligent and determined woman. MacMurray’s slight B-movie
blandness – his lack of star quality, his everyday, folky unimaginativeness –
is perfect for the overconfident, slightly smarmy, laziness of Neff. It’s never
said outright, but you suspect that the attraction of the danger Phyllis offers
is escape from his own dull life. Does he love Phyllis? I would say almost
certainly not – but is he horny for her? You better believe it. It’s a man on
the cusp of a mid-life crisis getting a chance to throw himself into a sex-driven
affair.
What do these two think of each other? Both of them seem
barely capable of trusting each other, using sex and flirting almost as a
filler between bouts of mutual suspicion. Does she care for him even a little
behind her use of him? And does he feel anything like a bond with her inbetween
the bouts of sex? They stumble so quickly into the plan that it almost feels
like they are going through the motions – she is so used to manipulation and
murder, it’s all she knows; he is so bored with his life that the excitement of
violence and murder with his sex seems impossible to resist.
And Wilder lets sex run through this whole film. From
Phyllis’ long descent down her flight of stairs at her first entrance to the irresistible
anklet, everything about Stanwyck in this film is about the power of her sex.
The dialogue exchanges between Neff and Phyllis crackle with magnetism. Later, Wilder
skilfully shoots a sex scene without showing a thing: we cut from the two of
them kissing on a sofa, to their positions shifted, Phyllis fixing her dress
and Neff reclining smoking.
It helps that the dialogue is scintillating. Each exchange
is packed with crackling and quotable lines. You get a perfect marriage here
between Wilder’s acerbic cynicism and dry wit, and Raymond Chandler’s arch,
spiky, carefully constructed dialogue, with its gritty poetry. I mean just
watch the exchange here – perfection.
And they write some knock-out speeches too – but then you would if you had an actor as brilliant as Edward G. Robinson to deliver them.
Neff’s voiceover uses the technique where it should be used
– not to tell us information any well informed viewer can already work out for themselves,
but to allow us insight into Neff himself and his situation, that complements
and develops our appreciation of the picture (it’s also beautifully well
delivered by MacMurray). I’d also add it’s the same conceit as Sunset Boulevard – its lead character
narrates the film mortally wounded – and it works just as well here, stressing
the disaster that hangs over every action by our anti-heroes.
Added to this, the film looks beautiful. The shadows have an
all-consuming inky depth. Cinematographer John Seitz is not afraid of turning
the lights down and down, and the darkness absorbs and consumes the whole
picture. It allows striking lighting effects – the blinds that seem to be in
every room allow slits of light through them that draw lines across the faces
and bodies of the actors (as many viewers have commented, it also has the
effect of making half the characters appear like they are behind bars). The darkness
looms in from the corners of the frame, trapping the leads into the action –
and into their own disastrous decisions.
Wilder’s skilful camera placement is what makes this film
really work. He presents action constantly in challenging and different ways,
never doing the expected. During the actual murder (committed while Phyllis
drives), the camera never looks at Neff committing the crime, but closely
follows the look of almost sensual satisfaction on Phyllis’ face: she never
once looks at what is happening in the seat next to her, but her face makes us
experience the killing in an even more disturbingly intimate way than watching
it would be.
But what makes this film truly brilliant and unique is that
its main relationship isn’t even the one you expect. Neff and Phyllis may have
an electric physical relationship, but the real romance in the film is between
Neff and his colleague Keyes. These two share a deeply close and personal bond.
Theirs is a friendship that skirts around a platonic romance – made sharper of
course as Keyes is the only man who stands a chance of working out what exactly
is going on. There is a fine visual motif throughout of Neff lighting matches (with
his thumb!) for Keyes – a gesture that feels both manly and intimate.
Keyes is played by a career-best Edward G. Robinson.
Robinson blazes through the big speeches – but with a confident skill that
never makes them feel like showboating moments. He gives Keyes an eccentric
brilliance, mixed with a delicate humanism. To be that good at sniffing out
wrongdoing and deceit from his fellow men, you can’t help feeling that he must
have a pretty good idea about what human fallibility feels like. It’s this warm
human understanding that Robinson does so brilliantly. It’s also what helps to
make this relationship so moving. It’s hard not to share the obvious awkward
discomfort MacMurray gives to Neff when he feels as if he is letting down his
friend, and betraying the trust between them.
It’s this that makes Double
Indemnity stand out. It’s a film that’s actually about the relationship
between two men – part friendship, part father-and-son, part romantic – their
love for each other, which happens to have an irresistible femme fatale thrown into the middle. It feels like a very unique
and different approach – a touch of Wilder magic if you will – that makes the
film stand out. It’s also what lies behind the link it has with audiences, the
human interest that makes you come back again and again to this film about two
ruthless killers.
This is a film in which everyone was at their best.
MacMurray never did anything again to match it, Stanwyck seized the part with
such commitment that she spawned countless imitators, Robinson is just
magnificent. Wilder’s direction is perfect, the film looks ravishing, the
script is to die for. Double Indemnity
may not only be the most influential film noir ever. It might also be the best.
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