Date Seen: 7/19/17
Score: 5/5
DIRECTOR: Billy Wilder
PRODUCER: Joseph Sistrom
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
SCREENPLAY: Billy Wilder & Raymond Chandler
CINEMATOGRAPHY: John Seitz
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| Fred MacMurray |
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| About sixteen minutes into the film comes this cameo- Raymond Chandler, co-author of the script. This is the only known footage of him in existence. |
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| "I'm an insurance salesman, and I can see that you're not fully covered." |
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| "How fast was I going, officer?" |
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| Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck |
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| Edward G. Robinson |
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| Wilder "bending reality" by employing a door that unusually opens by pulling rather than pushing |
Billy Wilder's first landmark film, Double Indemnity (1944), has been rightly described as the quintessential film noir- the film that set the precedents for those to follow in terms of plot, characters, mise-en-scène, lighting, design, witty dialogue, and themes. In 1946 French critic Nino Frank coined the term film noir in an issue of L'écran française to describe the type of film represented by Double Indemnity; ever since, its legacy to the genre and to filmmaking in general has been cemented into the pillars of cinematic history. In doing so, Frank also designated John Huston's The Maltese Falcon as being instrumental in the development of the "new crime film" genre coming out of Hollywood. Both films have contributed vastly to the genre by way of setting the precedent for all others that would come after, and I think it's entirely possible to view all episodes of film noir through the lenses established by these two films. There are, of course, critical differences between the films, and while I would hesitate to claim that the differences make one superior to the other, I personally find that Wilder's treatment of the crippling pessimism and angst of the American 1940s is done more carefully, more meaningfully, and more realistically.
Huston's main contribution to the film noir can be seen as his championing of hard-boiled protagonists with hearts of gold, perfectly embodied by Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade. These men can be tempted but never fully corrupted- they can flirt with a femme fatale but never fall victim to one. They represent a fantasy form of vigilante justice, standing above the corrupted filth of society and attempting to make things right even if it means playing dirty. The type of film noir represented by such films as The Maltese Falcon deliver more or less the same appeal as a superhero story- an independent man who must always serve as the rescuer, a man who resents women and their sexual powers, and punishes them and all others who have hurt him and others like him.
Double Indemnity is a completely different story. There is nothing fantastical at all about the crime story it represents- the characters, including the protagonist, are depicted as filthy, pathetic phonies, and they meet their fate with the overarching production-code-sponsored message that crime does not pay. There is real human weakness depicted- flirtation turns into commitment, commitment turns into damnation- and there is typically resentment expressed at the end, but it's always too little, too late. The spectator doesn't identify with the characters so much as revile them, or even pity them. In this way Double Indemnity is more of a social commentary than a noir like The Maltese Falcon could ever be. While perhaps The Maltese Falcon, like seemingly every other Huston film, delivers the same stock message that greed can corrupt the soul, Double Indemnity is much more specific in its criticism of society.
Of course, there are similarities between the two types of films, mainly in the way that they are shot and in all aspects of the setting as represented by the mise-en-scène. There is also the interesting aspect of perspective that draws a boundary between the two schools of noir, a boundary that is magnificently manipulated by Martin Scorsese in his 1976 neo-noir Taxi Driver. The protagonist may feel that he is a vigilante superhero, above other mortals, but society views him as a misguided neurotic. This bridge seems to suggest that, while both the protagonists of noir represented by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and by Walter Neff in Double Indemnity may believe that they are intellectually superior to all others, only the first man is actually right. Taxi Driver finds its own brilliance in its ability to expose this characterization of film noir by shifting the perspective from one hand to the other.
Many have suggested that Double Indemnity is an updated Crime and Punishment, pointing to the similarities between the stories of two men convinced in their superiority and willing to gamble everything for the chance to commit the perfect murder. I have mixed feelings about this interpretation. First of all, I think that Double Indemnity does not match up to Dostoevsky intellectually- it's not spiritually smart, it's social smart. There's also the point that Andrew Sarris makes that he has "never been able to perceive the motivational moment in which Walter Neff, the breezy insurance salesman and devil-may-care womanizer, is transformed into a purposeful murderer." I agree with this assessment- there's never a moment when Neff openly contemplates his transition to the dark side. Basically the entire first half of Crime and Punishment is about Raskolnikov's ideological dilemma as to whether or not he believes he's superior enough to commit a perfect crime. And not only that, but there's very little guilt or remorse from Neff- while the second half of Dostoevsky's book discusses, aptly, the "punishment" stage- physical and psychological- Wilder's film only hints at Neff's worry of being caught. Finally, there's the decision to have Neff through away what could have been a perfect crime by confessing- and why? What has made him change his mind now?
This assessment is not to suggest that Wilder's film is lacking, but rather that it's different. It's why I don't buy into the whole modernized-Dostoevsky thing. John Gregory Dunne seems to perfectly summarize the Wilder camp reaction to the Sarris assessment: "The answer has always seemed obvious to me. Phyllis Dietrichson gave Walter Neff an erection, and from that moment on Neff's underdeveloped common sense took up residence in his scrotum." Comments like these bring the viewer away from the psychological implications suggested by loftier film critics and into the nitty-gritty dystopian reality implicated by Wilder and his film.
That, to me, is what Wilder does best, and what sets his film apart from and, in my opinion, above The Maltese Falcon brand of noir. He's talking about real life, not some mediocre man's fantasy. As Gene Phillips writes, "The pessimistic view of life exhibited in such movies was an outgrowth of the disillusionment that would continue into the Cold War... Film noir depicts a stark night world peopled by characters who are trapped in a decadent, crime-ridden society." And instead of using film as a coping mechanism like Huston, Wilder instead decides to indulge with the disgusting, giving viewers an absolute train-wreck of a situation as an emphasis of how icky the underbelly of human nature can be. Wilder was born and raised in Germany, learning the tricks of the film trade in the 1920s, and knew a little something about how to translate the power of dangerous societal ideologies and realities onto the screen. Double Indemnity stands as only one of his masterworks in this cinematic mission.
Sources Used
"The Rise of Film Noir: Double Indemnity" from the book Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder, by Gene D. Phillips (2010)
"Double Indemnity: Billy Wilder's Crime and Punishment" by James M. Cain and Ruth Prigozy, published in Literature Film Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 3 (1984)
"Double Indemnity" from Wikipedia
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