Double Indemnity (1944)
Double Indemnity (1944), directed by Billy Wilder.
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I wonder if she's still lying alone up there in that house or if they've found her by now. I wonder a lot of things. They don't matter any more.
Bit by bit, the essential classics become available on Blu-ray.
Notes after the first Blu-ray viewing:
Written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, from a James M. Cain novel. I hear a lot of Chandler in the witty bits of dialogue, but also in the evocation of hot and dusty LA, the historical layers of architecture, newish but already seeming old.
An insider might attempt the perfect crime: do a murder, get the woman and the money. ("I didn't get the woman and I didn't get the money"). As always we wonder how it will go wrong. What did they miss?
Did their greed for the double payoff sink them? Would they have made it otherwise?
A possible criticism is that although Walter is driven by his lust for Phyllis, we get only one scene that hints as to consumation of their passion. This is no doubt due to the Production Code: the story was sordid enough already. But the hands-off policy serves a useful purpose: note that Walter's passion flags when he decides to become a killer. He's more interested in outsmarting the insurance company than in bedding Phyllis. His romantic obsession evaporates in the face of his fear: first of being caught, and in the end the fear of her.
At the last moment her eyes go wide when she feels the pistol. It's a well-known joke but at that moment it's not.
Barbara Stanwyck can do it all. Here the whole package of cheap wig, tight sweater and ankle bracelet make us believe. That glint in her eye when she's going to kill someone.
Apart from that Phyllis is rather opaque. We're never really sure how much she planned or what she always intended. The story from her point of view might be interesting, but it would mean nailing down much of what is unknown.
By contrast, Walter's guilt and fear is obvious to us, although invisible to the other characters. He shows almost supernatural dread. Fred MacMurray, mostly a light comic actor, is remarkably fine here.
All the other possible male leads turned it down.
Edward G. Robinson's Barton Keyes is one of my favorite characters in movies. He's said to be doing a Billy Wilder impression.
As close as he and Neff are, note that he doesn't go all drippy at the end. He's a pal, but not a chump. Walter has broken his heart, but that doesn't mean he gets away with murder.
The scene where the car won't start after the murder: it was added at the last minute. Wilder's car wouldn't start and he ran in from the parking lot: "Don't strike the car set yet!"
It's set in 1938, already the mythical pre-war past.
Hitchcock loved it.
Miklos Rozsa score, both lyrical and doom-laden.
Available on Blu-ray with these extras:
Two commentary tracks: the usual relaxed musings of Richard Schickel, and a conversation between Nick Redman and writer Lem Dobbs, who are also watching the film but might as well not be.
A documentary: Shadows of Suspense.
The 1973 made for TV version, using a reduced edit of the original screenplay. A pointless, passionless effort, in color and brightly lit. Wags on the IMDB ask "Where's Columbo?" It has that look. Nice standard def image, though, from a 35mm original.
