More Film Noir Please!

Film Noir is one of my primary cinematic choices. From gangster movies from the 30's, to murder and detective films from the 40's and 50's, to subtle political thrillers from McCarthy's Red Scare period, to every type of cinema that has derived from Film Noir since. It is stylish German Expressionism mixed with an America in depression, in total decay, where bad people stay rotten, and where the good are corrupted by society, poverty, broken fantasies and needs that one can only fulfill by crime.

Last week, I saw one of the most original, influential and daring films of its time: Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder (1944), based on James Cain's 1935 novella. This film was so risky, that no great Hollywood actor wanted to interpret its characters, from fear that such a role in such an unusually hazardous film would end their career. However, Wilder finally got Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck to star in his movie, alongside Edward G. Robinson, who at first wasn't too comfortable with the fact that he would be playing a secondary role, considering that he had always been the main character in every one of his films. Though afraid that going from Little Caesar to a paranoid insurance man would set back his career, it did no such thing, for his performance is brilliant and essential.

The story starts off in an office in Los Angeles, where a successful insurance salesman, Walter Neff, is sitting at his boss' desk while recording a confession to a murder that he had committed. As he admits everything that happened, the whole story unfolds before us. Walter went up to a rich man's house for insurance sales purposes, where he met his client's wife, Phyllis Dietrichson. Given her charm and fatal appeal, he fell deeply in love with her, which brought him to help her murder her husband and collect a double sum of indemnity by making the assassination seem like a freak accident. However, Walter's boss, Barton Keyes, didn't buy into the verdict, and wouldn't stop until he could prove that the client was indeed murdered. When Keyes finally thought he figured out the identity of the killer (another one of Phyllis's lovers), Walter Neff went over to Phyllis' home and murdered her after being shot by her. All this pressure is what brings Neff to confess to his good friend Keyes, who is secretly standing at the door of his office, listening to the whole story.

What aspects make this film so praise-worthy? Film Noir is known for its artistic shots and its way of experimenting with light and shadow, but Double Indemnity's lightworks and precisely thought-out still frames are over the top. Some scenes are so dark that only the strictly essential is apparent to the naked eye, and the window blinds trace such sharp lines throughout the rooms and onto the characters, giving a claustrophobic sense of imprisonment. Wilder also has a way of adding certain subtle elements such as silence, long suspenseful sequences and unexpected setbacks, in order to amplify the tension. On another note, Phyllis Dietrichson is a femme fatale character worthy of the term, appearing to us wrapped in a little towel, bare-shouldered, two years before Gilda took the spotlight with her famous flip-haired entrance as she says “Me? Sure I’m decent”. However, Gilda turns out to be humane, whereas Phyllis is all stone inside. And to create a strong female character with a rock instead of a heart took guts in the 40’s. And to kill off that character in the end, probably took even more guts. Phyllis is equipped with an enormous sex appeal, although treachery is written all over her face. Her attractive yet elegance-lacking character is brilliantly brought to the screen by Stanwick. Double indemnity masters all the elements of Film Noir and much more, making it one of the greatest films of its genre.