MUBI

C’est l’histoire d’un monde qui se soucie un peu plus de l’argent que de l’être humain. D’assureurs qui préfèrent en perdre le moins possible quitte à ne pas soucier de la personne. C’est l’histoire de personnes qui sont justement manipulatrices, fausses et sans fois ni lois, ou presque.
L’histoire d’un homme qui tombe amoureux d’une femme (au premier regard, ça me fera toujours rire) et qui va sacrifier tout sens moral pour pouvoir partir faire sa vie avec elle et surtout l’argent du défunt mari qu’il s’apprête à tuer. Je regrette un peu que, comme pour Sunset Boulevard, Wilder dévoile presque tout de la fin. Il fallait donc que tout le contenu du film tienne le coup. C’est le cas avec une histoire savamment bien étudiée, bien rodée et donnant au film noir de fameuses lettres de noblesse. Cette femme manipulatrice, est très bien interprétée par Barbara Stanwyck même si j’avoue avoir eu une préférence pour Fred MacMurray que je connaissais pas du tout, mais qui est très correct à l’écran.
Evidemment, il y a aussi une quête de rédemption de l’un des personnages après avoir tenté de s’en sortir d’une toute aussi mauvaise manière que le plan pour toucher l’assurance de la mort de l’époux. Et puis le final reste un rien ouvert donc on peut supposer encore des choses. Très bon film de Wilder, une fois encore.

“Double Indemnity” is one of the all-time greats and one of the first big film noirs. It was adapted by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder from the novella of the same name by James M. Cain and turned into this lavish Hollywood picture in 1944. The cast is excellent, especially Barbara Stanwyck who gives a phenomenal performance as the diabolical femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson. She is lauded for being one of the greatest film villains and also for paving the way and setting a standard for future femme fatales. The fast-paced dialogue and quick exchanges between Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck makes for hilariously entertaining scenes. “Double Indemnity” is most definitely the quintessential film noir and one of director Billy Wilder’s best. He went on to make some of the greatest films of all time [“Witness for the Prosecution”, “Some Like It Hot”, “The Apartment” and “Sunset Blvd.”], but this one was never forgotten as his big breakthrough. It’s an important film in terms of pop culture and also as a warning for men to stay away from sexy seductresses who wear anklets and bad wigs. (A+)

To me, films are like chocolate (bad ones are dark), and you can really taste the uniqueness in flavor when it comes to Double Indemnity, and I gotta tell you baby, it tastes lovely. Film noir has got to be the coolest genre to ponder on, and just after watching my third Wilder film, the man earned a top priority of directors in my mind. This film mainly focuses on an insurance guy getting tangled up with a femme fatale who gets him to murder her husband to collect life insurance. Could this be the sickest idea my mind has ever thought of? Yes, this is definitely the sickest thing I’ve ever heard of. At the murder scene, the camera pans to Phyllis’s face rather than the actual murder of her husband in the passenger seat. I’ll be honest with you: I think I would’ve preferred watching the actual murder than the look on her face. The rest of the story’s main suspense lies in wondering whether the two will get away with it or not with Keyes pressing the situation, and some scenes just make me feel like I’m tip-toeing in the dark hoping not to get caught. I don’t know if it’s the flirting, the witty script, the motives of greed and lust, Neff’s use of “baby,” the blackness in the noirish shots, but something about these ingredients in this dessert hits the spot. They all have swirling chocolate in the commercial!

(Originally written June 15, 2007)

I’ve probably seen this American classic more than any other with the exception of Duck Soup. For the longest time, it was, for me, Billy Wilder’s greatest film, a dangerous investigation of the marriage of lust and murder. The film has some of the greatest moments, including the chilling end of the film. For the entire film, Fred MacMurray lights Edward G. Robinson’s cigars, but the opposite is true for the final sequence. It’s a reversal of roles that plays out absolutely beautifully. However, as I have begun to develop more of a sense of cynicism towards established American film classics, I have begun to realize what a talky film this is. Talk is by no means a bad thing, but to say that the dialogue has the same genuine sense of sexual tension of a Howard Hawks film such as To Have and Have Not or the same smoky film noir weariness of The Big Sleep would not be true. Wilder was very obviously a cynic, holding a very critical and harsh view of the world around him. His best films (The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard, and Sabrina) articulate these feelings while also having a sense of humor about them. Film is, by its very nature, a visual medium, and this film is so propelled by dialogue that is not even Wilder’s most vibrant and sharp. The idea of “straight down the line” becomes tired, and the one-liners alternate between biting and overdone. After watching film noirs such as The Big Sleep and Pickup on South Street, this just does not seem nearly as dangerous for me as it once did. I am in no way suggesting that I do not like this film because it is still fantastic, but it falls short of being the masterpiece it is often purported to be.

There are movies that are hard to forget and this is one of them. The characters stay in the mind and particularly the one played by Barbara Stanwyck. She plays my favourite type of femme fatale, cold and calculating yet alluring; one who attempts redemtion without success.

Billy Wilder delivers a near perfect script with sharp dialgues and, (very important in this type of films) perfect casting. Double Indemnity was way ahead of its time and as a result it has endured time. A brilliant example of Noir as well as a classic.

It’s one of the iconic noirs, tightly scripted and luminously shot. Wilder composes Cains seemingly amoral characters into a late WW2 canvas, where the old rules of formality are barely holding together. After the horrors in Europe, here is a world where it’s dog eat dog, a Los Angeles that has dark, not sunny edges, so look sharp. He had difficulty casting the film, as there were not too many redeeming aspects to the leads as written, and effectively talked the two stars into playing against type. It’s a part of the films strength that he did.

Stanwyck was not a natural femme fatale, but a blonde wig with an attitude works wonders and at first sight she’s enough to tempt MacMurray to abandon any semblance of propriety and jump on board the train to nowhere.

Wilder starts the film at the end, with MacMurray’s Walter Neff working out how he got there, and then filling us and the Robinson character (Keyes) in on the way. Edward G is really the 3rd part of the love triangle, not Stanwycks oafish husband. He has real respect and regard for Walter, bordering on love, making his blindness to the ultimate betrayal even more keenly felt.
Walter has idlly daydreamed about the what ‘inside’ information could bring him, and the allure of Stanwycks’ Phyllis forces him to bump into the reality of stepping across the legal divide.

Keyes is sure of the dark heart of most men, weak men, and obviously doesn’t count Walter amongst their number. Keyes is a numbers man, he knows the odds inside out, in fact he wrote the book. Walter is smart enough to think he can beat the system if he puts his mind to it, even if Keyes, who he admires, is part of the system.

Double Indemnity is a film about blind spots. Walter has a blind spot with Phyllis, and it makes him uncertain enough to second guess his choices. Keyes has a blind spot with Walter, and overlooks him as a potential suspect. As the scheme unravels, Walters blind spot lifts and he doesn’t like what he sees, but he’s on that train, all the way to the end of the line.
Wilder shows us a man who thought he could beat the odds, an Adam to Stanwyck’s Eve. Walter gets what he has coming, and takes it like a man at last.

It’s an old story, but when told with wit and verve, it still has a powerful bite.

What many call the ultimate film noir, the murder mystery that is spoiled at the start, setting the stage for a retelling by our protagonist of the perfect crime, is unraveled before our eyes. Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity revolves around an insurance fraud murder that appears foolproof until the seams start to tear. Walter Neff, the top salesman two months in a row, falls in love with the young wife of an oilman, a woman looking for a way to leave her troubled marriage. Who better to get away with the perfect crime then a man that sees false claims avenged everyday? Their tracks must be covered and their guilt assuaged. However, being as our first scene shows Walter confessing to everything, we know the well-laid plans were unsuccessful. The trick to the film becomes how it all went down, how the puzzle pieces fell into place, and the power of a conscience, eating away at you until you can’t stand the pressure any longer.

It is not giving away anything to say that the two complete the task of killing Mr. Dietrichson, a businessman with a temper. The deed is orchestrated to look like he fell off a train, a venue for accidental death that comes with a special double indemnity clause, one that pays twice the cost of his recently purchased insurance of $50,000. That money is the impetus that pushes Neff over the top to help his new mistress. Phyllis Dietrichson is the damsel in distress, the nurse of her husband’s first wife that was naïve and heartbroken for her boss after his loss. She says it compelled her to stay with him in a union that never held any love. The chance arrival of Neff not only opens her eyes to the possibility of a clean break without any strings and actually some cash to boot, but also to a man she can spend time and possibly settle down with. It is a strange coincidence that the Dietrichson’s auto insurance was allowed to lapse, creating a house call, and a happy accident that the man called to visit was one as immoral as Walter. Right from the start he flirts and makes advances towards the woman he knows is married to his client. It’s not until the end that you start to consider whether none of it was by chance at all, but instead carefully planned out and manipulated from the first second.

Neff is played by Fred MacMurray—a perfect fit for the role of a shady salesman, unafraid to get his hands dirty. The confidence and swagger allow us to believe he can win over the girl as easily as he does. He is the kind of guy that can fool the world into thinking he is on the level, a man of intelligence and pride. His boss, Barton Keyes and he have a very close relationship, one based on mutual respect and admiration. Neff has them all fooled into believing he is a man of character, one Keyes would personally vouch for, and his initial balk at the offer to help kill Dietrichson shows that maybe he is. Maybe there is some semblance of humanity behind the quick-witted banter and devious smile, a moral compass that won’t allow him to cross the line. But greed and lust can tempt even a saint, let alone a guy like Neff, and it doesn’t take long for him to begin the blueprints for what will be the perfect crime; one that not even Keyes and his keen lie detector can spot. It is that question of virtue that will ultimately undo him, though, as the strong stomach he thought he had might not be indestructible.

The story revolves around MacMurray and as a result he is onscreen almost the entire time. He is our narrator and our entrance point into the proceedings. However, it is not a role that we necessarily relate to, nor even begin to feel sorry for to hope he gets away with the crime. Instead, knowing about his confession from the beginning, we sit down to watch his hubris shred his world to pieces. Each person is a cog to the tale at hand; it is the plotting of the film that takes center stage and top billing. The pieces are moved and we follow them through the twists and turns and revelations that change our preconceptions of each. No one is truly as they seem and they all have an ulterior motive just below the surface, propelling their actions and attempts for survival whether the other does or not. Our two criminals are selfish at heart, but until you watch the entire journey, you won’t know just how much.

While the acting is definitely dated and a product of its time, it doesn’t mean that it’s not good. Barbara Stanwyck plays MacMurray’s partner-in-crime Phyllis with equal panache. She holds her own in every situation, whether with her sharp tongue in some very funny back and forths or in her steely disposition when things get rough, it’s a part that needs to be strong and is. Barton Keyes is the role that sticks with you, though. Edward G. Robinson is fantastic as the cocky claims agent, self-proclaimed as never being wrong when his gut says something isn’t right. He delivers some of the best lines with such deadpan seriousness that you laugh even harder. The ego, cynicism, and attitude all add up to a man you have to respect, because under the tough exterior lies a man with heart. His dynamic with MacMurray is an interesting one, especially when seen through to the end. While they aren’t completely fleshed out, each character is a detailed piece to the intricate web of deceit on display. Surrogates for the story to be shown to the audience, we watch them not for who they are, but for what they will do.