Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity

We watched a classic Noir in a Media lesson and this is my write up on it.

Double Indemnity is a classic Film Noir, it’s supposed to be one of the best Film Noir around for that age. Directed by Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity is used by insurance businesses. It means when somebody who had life insurance dies in a weird or unusual way then the money shall be doubled. Anyways the film is about a insurance officer whose name is Walter Neff, in the few minutes of the opening we already have our main character our, ‘Anti-hero.’ The beginning of the film is different to most film now days, in true Noir style it started from the end of the story to the beginning with our main character explaining it by using flashbacks. Even the use of the lighting here has been used when he sits down the use Venetian blinds have been used, we can also tell that it’s night. The contrast between the blacks and whites show us this.

 Neff our main character tells us how he was doing a routine insurance policy, this is where he meets the stories own femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson. As soon as we see this fatale the lighting is straight on her face making it lighter and her eye to sparkle also when we first meet our fatale she’s just wearing a gown over her chest as she admits she’s been sun bathing. Neff is taking in by such beauty, especially when she comes down and shows off her pretty little anklet. They both start to flirt and somehow our fatale slips in how she can get her husband life insurance without him knowing, Neff clicks on to her plan and tells her he wants no part in it. However our fatale’s charm has worked on him and she pays him a visit later on that night. The femme fatale is a dangerous women, like a black widow spider. She uses the male to get what she wants and as soon as she has it she’ll get rid of them as well. And Phyllis does this well. Billy Wilder makes sure that Phyllis is a character who stands out and that can’t be missed, he does this by props Ice tea, big glasses and even the anklet.

Neff agrees to help kill Phyllis’s husband and brings in the use of a Double indemnity, he tells her not to worry and that he’ll sort out a plan just like a hero would of some kind. Our femme fatale now has control over our hero and turns him into a anti-hero, she brings him into a life of crime, murder. Neff and Phyllis do kill her husband but mange to make it look like he fell from a train, the contrast when they kill her husband is dark and all you can really see is the fatale’s face, her husband’s and a shadow when she honks the horn of the car

They set it out so Phyllis’s was waiting at the track to place his body out on to it and then they could drive off. This is all done in the dark, grim of night. However they both start to panic and build up tension when the car doesn’t want to start. Here the director was quite clever he didn’t use no words at all, he just used the expression on the characters faces to tell the audience how they are feeling when they couldn’t turn it on at all.

The insurance company are not having any of it and don’t believe Phyllis’s husband fell instead jumped. Of course this doesn’t go to well and even Barton Keyes, Neff’s colleague doesn’t believe it was suicide. He goes into a bit more and tries to find out what went on and why. He realises that Mr Dietrichson didn’t claim on the insurance once he had broken his leg and then tells Neff this and that they’ve been watching Phyllis’s house and think they have them both. And in the dead of night Neff goes to see Phyllis, he takes a gun. Phyllis knows he’s coming and has a gun as well she shoots and it him and the same goes for Neff. This is all done in such dark all you can make out is the figures of the characters. This is when Neff goes back to the insurance companies offices and tells the whole story into his Dictaphone.

There isn’t much sound in Double Indemnity at all just a few bits of music here and there and when there is it’s a bit downbeat jazzy type of music. The whole setting is urban, dark streets but when they place the body of the fatale’s husband down it’s not really that urban. Billy Wider knows that to make a good film you need more than a good storyline you need good props and settings as well. The ideology of this film I would say was that crime doesn’t pay. Or never trust a woman? Especially at them times when women were just house wives.