Noir de Noir #1 - Double Indemnity (1944)

Director: Billy Wilder Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

Review:

Film Noir is a term used to describe a genre of crime drama with certain common story elements and visual style.  Strict definition of film noir would be a research topic in film school, but some movies are more noir than the others. An american crime drama with characters all having plans on each other, suspicious silhouette, narration spilling rhetorical words, would most likely be a film noir. Recent movies seldom falls into pure Noir catergory, but usually blended into other genres, such as action (Sin City, 2005), or science fiction (Terminator, 1991, according to some opinions as techno-noir). 

Double Indemnity (1944) is a prime example of classic Noir, although the term was not even coined by 1944.   It tells the story in flashback of a insurance salesman, Neff, talking on a phone to his superior, badly wounded. He confesses to him that it is he who committed the murder.

Neff confessing on the phone

It all started since Neff went to visit Mr. Dietrichson at his house, but Dietrichson was not in. Instead he met Mrs. Phyllis Dietrichson. On the first sight Neff was already fond of her, and apparently she took the flirt too, so much so that wanted to conspire with Neff to murder his husband, Mr. Dietrichson, for insurance money. Neff tricked Mr. Dietrichson to sign an accidental insurance contract, and came up with a clever plan to kill him on a train since in such situation the insurance company will pay double, "double indemnity". Mr. Dietrichson had to go a business trip, and on the way to the train station, Neff and Phyllis killed him on the car. Neff subsituted Dietrichson to board the train, and jump off half-way. They dump the body on the track to let people think Dietrichson fell off and broke his neck. At first time everybody thought so, until his superior Keyes got suspicious on knowing Dietrichson had a broken leg but did not claim any damage.

Venetican blind shadow can be seen anywhere in the movie: a visual element of Film Noir.

As I have mentioned this movie was made in the early days of film noir, and the style was still in development. We follows the eyes of the murderer Neff, and creates an atomsphere of suspense on the worries of Neff about committing it and his fear of others knowing it. It was done perfectly as planned at the time it was done, but it seems everything had went wrong on his walk of way home. He murders for woman and money, then for a curiosity on whether he can fool the insurance company better than the others, perfect crime, but later only wants to cover it up. It captures the menality of having a guilty conscience and the fear of everything falling apart and transcent it to the audience with style. A worrying man sits under the shadow of venetican blind, talks in narration about his calculations and thoughts, and makes you feel as if you were put in the situation.

Although I do not fully buy the plot a whole lot. Neff has meet Phyllis only twice, and if she took that flirt so easily she is probably a whore, and you want to conspire a murder with her? Neff does not have any thing on her so if she refuses to share the money Neff could not do nothing about it. Later when self-preservation comes to mind, he kills Phyllis without a blink of an eye. Smart. But why didnt you get smart at first? Moreover, why go back to confess when he wants and able to flee to the border?

Anyways, it was an early example in the genre so the Noir style may not be so strong. Though it gets me into the story, personally I do not rate this movie as high as it has been ranked. The thing that Keyes lights a match for Neff at the end, which it was Neff who always light matches for Keyes in the whole movie, seems cliche and could be seen coming a mile away, though you could not blame the movie for it was new at that time. As a whole experience, I was satisified but not stunned.