The film stars Fred MacMurray as insurance salesman Walter Neff, who plots with a woman (Barbara Stanwyck) to kill her husband in order to claim a life insurance payment, arousing the suspicion of claims manager Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson). The title refers to a "double indemnity" clause which doubles life insurance payouts when death occurs in a statistically rare manner.
Wounded from a gunshot, insurance salesman Walter Neff stumbles into his Los Angeles office. He records a dictaphone confession for claims manager Barton Keyes.
One year earlier, Neff flirts with Phyllis Dietrichson during a house call about her husband's automobile insurance. Phyllis asks about getting a policy on Mr. Dietrichson's life without his knowledge; deducing that she is contemplating murder, Neff wants no part of it but is fascinated with her. Later, Phyllis visits his apartment, where he concocts a plan to make Dietrichson sign a life insurance policy without realizing it, murder him, and frame it as an accident in order to trigger the policy's double indemnity clause.
Neff has Dietrichson sign the policy by convincing him that it is a copy of his automotive insurance renewal, but Dietrichson unexpectedly breaks his leg before the murder can take place, delaying the scheme. Neff hides in the back seat of Phyllis' car while she drives Dietrichson to a train station. Neff breaks his neck and boards the train posing as the crippled Dietrichson. He jumps off the back of the train at a pre-arranged spot, where Phyllis helps him pose Dietrichson's body on the tracks.
Neff's boss believes the death was a suicide. Keyes scoffs at the idea, which he considers statistically implausible, but does find it strange that Dietrichson did not file a claim after breaking his leg. He begins to suspect that Phyllis and an accomplice had him murdered. Reasoning that Dietrichson was not aware of the policy due to his not filing a claim on the broken leg, the company refuses to pay out. Meanwhile, Phyllis' stepdaughter Lola befriends Neff. She tells him that she saw Phyllis trying on mourning clothes several days before Dietrichson's death, and that she also suspects that Phyllis had killed her mother in order to marry Dietrichson. She now fears that Phyllis plans to kill her next.
Keyes finds a witness who says that the man he saw on the train was not Dietrichson. Neff warns Phyllis that pursuing the insurance claim in court risks exposing the murder, and insists that they should not see each other until the investigation ends. Neff learns that Nino, Lola's ex-boyfriend, has been visiting Phyllis every night since the murder, and that Keyes suspects Nino of being her accomplice. Fearing for Lola's life, Neff goes to confront Phyllis.
Neff tells Phyllis that he suspects her plan was to manipulate Nino into murdering Lola, and threatens to kill her. Phyllis shoots him, but when he comes closer and dares her to shoot again, she does not; she says that she never loved him "until a minute ago, when I couldn't fire that second shot." As they embrace, Neff shoots her twice with her gun. As Neff leaves, he sees Nino walk up to the house; he convinces him to call Lola and make up with her.
Neff finishes recording his confession and looks up to see Keyes watching him. Telling Keyes that he plans to flee to Mexico, he walks out of the office but collapses in the doorway. Keyes calls for an ambulance and the police, and the two wait for them to arrive.
Cast
Still from the original trailerStill from a 1950s trailer for early television broadcasts of the film
Douglas Spencer as Lou Schwartz, Neff's office mate
Norma Varden as the secretary who lets Mrs Dietrich into the insurance office
Production
Background
James M. Cain based his novella Double Indemnity on a 1927 murder perpetrated by Ruth Snyder, married to Albert Snyder, and her lover Henry Judd Gray,[1] who colluded with an insurance agent to obtain a $45,000 policy with a double-indemnity clause without Albert's knowledge and then have him murdered.
The general low tone and sordid flavor of this story makes it, in our judgment, thoroughly unacceptable for screen presentation before mixed audiences in the theater. I am sure you will agree that it is most important...to avoid what the code calls "the hardening of audiences," especially those who are young and impressionable, to the thought and fact of crime.[2]
In 1943, Cain's novella was anthologized with two others in Three of a Kind. Paramount's Joseph Sistrom bought the rights for $15,000, envisioning Billy Wilder as the director of an adaptation.[2] Paramount resubmitted the novella to the Hays Office and got an identical response as seven years earlier; Paramount then submitted a partial screenplay to the Hays Office. It was approved with three objections about portraying the disposal of a corpse, the gas chamber execution scene, and the skimpiness of the towel worn by the female lead.[2][3]: 54
Cain felt Joseph Breen owed him $10,000 for vetoing the purchase of the property for $25,000 in 1936.[4]
Writing
Edward G. Robinson as Barton Keyes
The restrictions imposed by the Hays Code made adapting Double Indemnity a challenge. Wilder's writing partner Charles Brackett helped with the treatment before bowing out.[5] Wilder characterized their time apart: "1944 was 'The Year of Infidelities'...Charlie produced The Uninvited...I don't think he ever forgave me. He always thought I cheated on him with Raymond Chandler."[6]
Cain was Wilder's first choice as a replacement for Brackett; Since Cain was working at 20th Century Fox, he was never asked to work on the film.[7][8] Sistrom suggested Raymond Chandler, whose 1939 novel The Big Sleep he had admired.[5]
New to Hollywood, Chandler demanded $1,000 and at least one week to complete the screenplay, not realizing he would be paid $750 per week and that it would take fourteen.[7] Wilder characterized Chandler's first draft as "useless camera instruction"; to teach Chandler screenwriting, Wilder gave him a copy of his script for Hold Back the Dawn.[2] They did not get along during the next four months. Chandler quit once, submitting a long list of grievances about Wilder to Paramount. Chandler did agree to appear in the film, glancing up from a magazine as Neff walks outside Keyes' office; this is the only professional footage of him.[9]
Chandler and Wilder made considerable changes to Cain's story. Because the Hays Code demanded criminals pay onscreen for their transgressions, the double suicide at the end of the novella was not permissible. The solution was to have the two protagonists mortally wound each other.[10] The character of Barton Keyes was changed from a fairly clueless colleague into a mentor and antagonist to Neff.[5]
Chandler felt that Cain's dialogue would not play well onscreen, but Wilder disagreed; after he hired contract players to read passages of Cain's text aloud, he conceded to Chandler. Chandler also scouted for locations including Jerry's Market on Melrose Avenue, where Phyllis and Walter discreetly meet to plan and discuss the murder.[11]
Chandler was a recovering alcoholic. Wilder said that "He was in Alcoholics Anonymous...I drove him back into drinking."[2]: 129 An embittered Chandler wrote in The Atlantic Monthly in November 1945 that "The first picture I worked on was nominated for an Academy Award...but I was not even invited to the press review held right in the studio."[11]: 181 Wilder responded, "How could we? He was under the table drunk..." Wilder's experience with Chandler drew him to adapt Charles R. Jackson's novel The Lost Weekend, about an alcoholic writer, as his next film; Wilder wanted the film "to explain Chandler to himself."[1]Library of America included the Double Indemnity screenplay in its second volume of Chandler's work, Later Novels and Other Writings (1995).
Cain was impressed with the screenplay, calling it "the only picture I ever saw made from my books that had things in it I wish I had thought of. Wilder's ending was much better than my ending, and his device for letting the guy tell the story by taking out the office dictating machine – I would have done it if I had thought of it."[8]
Casting
Wilder supposedly chose a bad wig for Stanwyck to underscore Phyllis's "sleazy phoniness".
Sistrom and Wilder wanted Barbara Stanwyck to play Phyllis Dietrichson. She was the highest-paid woman in America.[1] Stanwyck was reluctant to play a femme fatale, fearing it would have an adverse effect on her career. She recalled being "a little afraid after all these years of playing heroines to go into an out-and-out killer." Wilder asked, "Well, are you a mouse or an actress?" She was grateful for his encouragement.[2]: 134
Alan Ladd, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, and Fredric March all passed on the role of Neff.[2]: 134 Wilder scraped "the bottom of the barrel" and approached George Raft. Since Raft did not read scripts, Wilder described the plot. Raft interrupted, "Let's get to the lapel bit...when the guy flashes his lapel, you see his badge, you know he's a detective." Since Neff was not a cop, Raft turned the part down.[12]: 117 This was the last in a series of films Raft declined which turned out to be classics.[13] Wilder realized the part needed someone who could play a cynic and a nice guy simultaneously.[2]: 134
Fred MacMurray was accustomed to playing "happy-go-lucky good guys" in light comedies. In 1943, he was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.[14] When Wilder approached him about the role, MacMurray said, "You're making the mistake of your life!" He felt he lacked the skill for a serious part,[3]: 61 but Wilder pestered the actor until he relented. MacMurray felt Paramount would never let him play a "wrong" role, because the studio carefully crafted his image. Paramount let him take the unsavory role, hoping to teach him a lesson during negotiations for his contract renewal.[6]: 202–3 MacMurray's success in the role came as a surprise to both him and Paramount; he later recalled that he "never dreamed it would be the best picture [he] ever made."[12]: 118
Edward G. Robinson was reluctant to step down to third billing as Barton Keyes, reflecting that "At my age, it was time to begin thinking of character roles, to slide into middle and old age with the same grace as that marvelous actor Lewis Stone". Robinson agreed to take the role in part because he would receive the same salary as the two leads for fewer shooting days.[2]: 135
For Jean Heather as Lola it was her credited first film role, for Byron Barr as Nino it was his first film role ever, and for Tom Powers as Mr. Dietrichson it was his first film role since 1917.[citation needed]
Filming ran from September 27 to November 24, 1943.[15]John F. Seitz was the premier director of photography at Paramount, having worked since the silent era. Seitz was nominated for an Academy Award for Wilder's Five Graves to Cairo (1943). The director praised Seitz's willingness to experiment. They gave the film a look reminiscent of German expressionist cinema, with dramatic deployment of light and shadows.[2] Wilder recalled, "Sometimes the rushes were so dark that you couldn't see anything. He went to the limits of what could be done."[6]: 206 Bright Southern California exteriors contrasted with gloomy interiors to suggest what lurked beneath the facade.[1] The effect was heightened by dirtying up the set with overturned ashtrays and blowing aluminum particles into the air to simulate dust.[3]: 63
Use of "venetian blind" lighting became a stock-in-trade film noir look.
Seitz used "Venetian blind" lighting to simulate prison bars trapping the characters.[16] Barbara Stanwyck reflected that "the way those sets were lit, the house, Walter's apartment, those dark shadows, those slices of harsh light at strange angles – all that helped my performance. The way Billy staged it and John Seitz lit it, it was all one sensational mood."[10]
For Neff's office at Pacific All Risk, Wilder and set designer Hal Pereira copied the Paramount headquarters in New York City as an inside joke at the studio's expense.[6]: 207
Stanwyck wears a blonde wig "to complement her anklet...and to make her look as sleazy as possible." Paramount production head Buddy DeSylva did not approve of the wig, remarking that "We hired Barbara Stanwyck, and here we get George Washington."[2]: 135 In response, Wilder insisted that the wig was "meant to show that she's a phony character and that all of her emotions are fraudulent". A week into filming, Wilder came to consider the wig a mistake, but too much of the film had been shot to remove it; he later referred to the use of the wig as the biggest mistake of his career.[1][3]: 62
Edith Head designed Barbara Stanwyck's costumes.[17]: 77 Her designs focus on bias-cut gowns, blouses with wide sleeves, and the waistline. Shoulder pads were the style of the 1940s, but they also accentuated the femme fatale's power. In Stanwyck's death scene, her wig and white jumpsuit contrast with Neff's dark suit, creating a chiaroscuro effect.[17]: 75
When Phyllis and Walter dump the corpse on the tracks, they were supposed to get in their car and drive away. The crew shot the scene as written. As Wilder left the exterior location, however, his car would not start. He ordered the crew back and reshot the scene with Phyllis struggling to start her car. Wilder insisted MacMurray turn the ignition so slowly that the actor protested.[11]: 175–6 [12]: 116
Wilder managed to bring the whole production in under budget at $927,262 despite $370,000 in salaries for just four people: $100,000 each for MacMurray, Stanwyck, and Robinson; $44,000 for Wilder's writing plus $26,000 for his directing.[6]: 211 Wilder considered Double Indemnity his best film because it had so few scripting and shooting errors.[18] He marked Cain's praise for Double Indemnity and Agatha Christie's praise for his adaptation of Witness for the Prosecution as two high points in his career.[4]
Original ending
The screenplay ends with Keyes watching Neff's execution in the gas chamber. Wilder shot the scene from Neff's perspective, looking out of the glass chamber at Keyes.[19] Wilder shot for five days and spent $150,000 on the scene, which he felt was one of the best he ever directed.[7][20] Production stills of this scene exist, and the footage may still be in Paramount's vaults.[19]
However, the director ultimately decided to end the film with Keyes and Neff in their office, because "You couldn't have a more meaningful scene between two men...The story was between the two guys."[11]: 180 Chandler objected to the change.[2]: 137–8 Joseph Breen felt the execution was "unduly gruesome",[21] and its removal settled his office's last issue with the film.[12]: 118
Wilder liked Miklós Rózsa's work on Five Graves to Cairo and hired him to score Double Indemnity. Wilder suggested a restless string figure to reflect the conspiratorial activities of Walter and Phyllis. He had in mind the opening of Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, which is heard onscreen in the scene at the Hollywood Bowl. Rózsa liked the idea, and Wilder was enthusiastic about the score as it took shape.[6]: 210–11 [22]: 119
Paramount's music director Louis Lipstone reprimanded Rózsa for writing "Carnegie Hall music"; Rózsa mistook this as a compliment. Lipstone suggested he watch Madame Curie to learn how to properly score a film. He felt Rózsa's music was more appropriate for The Battle of Russia.[6]: 210–11 [22]: 121 He expected Paramount's artistic director Buddy DeSylva to agree, but when DeSylva heard the music, his only note was that there should be more of it.[22]: 122 The score was nominated for an Academy Award, and the success brought Rózsa more studio work.[22]: 122
Locations
Exterior shots of the Dietrichson house in the film were shot at a Spanish Colonial Revival house on 6301 Quebec Drive in Beachwood Canyon. The production team copied the interior of the house, including the spiral staircase, on a Paramount soundstage.[23]
The Southern Pacific Railroad station in Burbank was used in the film with a prop sign for Glendale; the site now hosts the Burbank Metrolink station.[24] Walter Neff's apartment building was located at 1825 North Kingsley Drive in Hollywood, and the Hollywood & Western Building also appears in the film.[25]
Release
Double Indemnity's first theatrical engagement was at the Keith's in Baltimore on July 3, 1944;[26] the film opened nationwide three days later.[27] It was an immediate hit with audiences despite a campaign against the film by singer Kate Smith.[6]: 213 James M. Cain recalled that "there was a little trouble caused by this fat girl, Kate Smith, who carried on a propaganda asking people to stay away from the picture. Her advertisement probably put a million dollars on its gross."[8]
When Double Indemnity was released, David O. Selznick was promoting Since You Went Away with trade magazine ads that claimed its title had become "the four most important words uttered in motion picture history since Gone with the Wind." Wilder riposted with an ad of his own claiming that "Double Indemnity" were the two most important words uttered in motion picture history since Broken Blossoms. Selznick was not amused, and threatened to stop advertising in any of the trades if they continued to run Wilder's ads.[6]: 212–3
Reception
Reviews
Contemporary reviews of the film were largely positive, though its content made some uncomfortable. While some critics found the story implausible and disturbing, others praised it as an original thriller. In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther called the picture "Steadily diverting, despite its monotonous pace and length." He complained that the two lead characters "lack the attractiveness to render their fate of emotional consequence", but also felt the movie possessed a "realism reminiscent of the bite of past French films".[2]: 139
New York Herald Tribune's Howard Barnes wrote it was "one of the most vital and arresting films of the year", praising Wilder's "magnificent direction and a whale of a script". Variety felt it "sets a new standard for screen treatment in its category".[2]: 139
Radio host and Hearst paper columnist Louella Parsons said, "Double Indemnity is the finest picture of its kind ever made, and I make that flat statement without any fear of getting indigestion later from eating my words."[4]
The Brooklyn Eagle was highly complimentary, "Besides MacMurray, who shows up as a top flight dramatic actor in a role that is a new type for him, and Miss Stanwyck, who has never given a more striking performance, 'Double Indemnity' has a third standout star, Edward G. Robinson, in his best role in many a film....By the way, there's no need to warn the teenagers away from this one; they wouldn't skip it in any case, and besides, 'Double Indemnity' makes it beautifully clear that murder doesn't pay—and certainly the insurance company doesn't, without sharp investigation."[28]
The film's critical reputation has only grown over the years. In 1977, Leslie Halliwell raved, "Brilliantly filmed and incisively written, perfectly capturing the decayed Los Angeles atmosphere of a Chandler novel, but using a simpler story and more substantial characters."[29] In a 1998 review for his "Great Films" series, Roger Ebert wrote, "The photography by John F. Seitz helped develop the noir style of sharp-edged shadows and shots, strange angles and lonely Edward Hopper settings."[30]
In Empire, Rob Fraser enthused, "Film noir at its finest, a template of the genre, etc. Billy Wilder in full swing, Barbara Stanwyck's finest hour, and Fred MacMurray makes a great chump."[31]
Filmed and released during the dark days of World War II, the film was not popular with the Academy. Wilder went to the awards ceremony expecting to win. The studio had been backing its other big hit of the year, Leo McCarey's Going My Way, and their employees were expected to vote for the studio favorite. As Double Indemnity kept losing during the awards show, it became evident that there would be a Going My Way sweep. When McCarey was named Best Director, a bitter Wilder tripped him on his way to accept the award.[2]: 140 After the ceremony, Wilder yelled so everyone could hear him, "What the hell does the Academy Award mean, for God's sake? After all – Luise Rainer won it two times. Luise Rainer!"[12]: 123
BBC: "100 Greatest American Films", #35 (2015).[47]
Variety: "The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time" (2022).[48]
Time Out: "100 Best Movies of All Time That You Should Watch Immediately" (2023).[49]
Film noir
Double Indemnity is a seminal example of film noir. It is often compared with Wilder's other acclaimed film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950). Film scholar Robert Sklar explains, "[T]he unusual juxtaposition of temporalities gives the spectator a premonition of what will occur/has occurred in the flashback story...Besides Double Indemnity and Detour, voice-over is a key aspect of Mildred Pierce, Gilda, The Lady from Shanghai, and Out of the Past...as well as many others."[50] Critic and writer Wendy Lesser notes that the narrator of Sunset Boulevard is dead before he begins narrating, but in Double Indemnity, "the voice-over has a different meaning. It is not the voice of a dead man...it is...the voice of an already doomed man."[51]
Wilder claimed that "I never heard that expression film noir when I made Double Indemnity...I just made pictures I would have liked to see. When I was lucky, it coincided with the taste of the audience. With Double Indemnity, I was lucky."[52]
Adaptations
The Screen Guild Theater twice adapted Double Indemnity as a radio drama. Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck reprised their roles in the first broadcast on March 5, 1945. Stanwyck appeared again on the February 16, 1950 version, this time opposite Robert Taylor.[53]
Double Indemnity is parodied in 1993's Fatal Instinct. The hero's wife conspires to have him shot on a moving train and fall into a lake so that she can collect on his insurance, which has a "triple indemnity" rider. Carol Burnett parodied the film as "Double Calamity" on The Carol Burnett Show.
Imitators
After the success of Double Indemnity, imitators were rampant. In 1945, Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the B movie studios of Hollywood's Poverty Row, financed Single Indemnity starring Ann Savage and Hugh Beaumont. Marketed as Apology for Murder, Paramount was not fooled by the title change and obtained an injunction against the film's release that still remains in effect.[57]
So many imitations flooded the market that Cain believed he deserved credit and remuneration. Cain was also disaffected about the extortionate practices of the film studios which could pay writers thousands of dollars for a copyright and earn millions from the resulting movie. He led a movement within the Screen Writers Guild to create the American Author's Authority, a union that would own its members' works, negotiate better subsidiary deals, and protect against copyright infringement. The AAA never got off the ground, partially due to the growing momentum of the Red Scare.[58]
^ abcMcGilligan, Patrick (1986). Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age. Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN978-0-520-05689-3. p. 125–8
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