The  second black and white film in my repertoire is  “Double Indemnity”, another of the film noir genre. In this one, however, the role of the protagonist was extremely amoral, to the point of murder. Walter Neff, an insurance salesman started out by completely disregarding the sanctity of the femme fatales marriage. As suspicious as he was of her intentions when they first met, he allowed himself to be drawn in by Mrs. Dietrechson. The femme fatale played two different roles, one of a naïve, helpless woman who only did her wifely duties, while her husband earned and treated her like a second class citizen.  The second role was that of a calculating, conniving and heartless individual who would do whatever it took to get what she wanted. Her coldness became evident in the movie when we saw that Walter was a nervous wreck after the murder, but she was calm and collected, doing exactly what was planned. She even started to make a contingency plan in case Walter didn’t follow through.

Many of the conventions of film noir were present, the use of light and shadows conveyed the mood, the music which was only present and became louder and at a higher tempo whenever there was going to be action. The setting, for example the use of rain in the scene after turning down Phyllis conveyed the gloom that fell over Walter. The camera angles of Walter were mostly from the bottom up to portray the fact that for the most of the film he had the upper hand. While seated in Keyes office, giving his confession he was slumped in a chair with the camera pointed down at him in judgment.

Before the movie began there was a small introduction in which it was explained that the adaptation of the movie was a long laborious task. This was because it was not only hard to get some of the contents of the book past censorship but also, any actor worth their salt was afraid to touch the controversial roles that the film had. The political context of the film is shown where the envelope was being pushed, by portraying a woman that was capable of murder and blatantly being unfaithful to her husband. Keyes also made it a point to mention that a lady that Walter might be interested would probably drink straight from a bottle with disgust; a trait that only a certain type of woman would do back in those days, I’m sure. There was also Walter’s surprised look when Phyllis accepted bourbon when he said he was out of champagne. This showed how women were expected to be in that time and how they were thought of if they fell outside of those conventions. There was also the specific mention of the colored woman who cleaned Walter’s house a nod to the segregation and racism that was rampant back then, she didn’t have a name just colored woman, similarly in the book the houseman was referred to as the Filipino. 

There were many similarities and also differences between “The Maltese Falcon” and “Double Indemnity”. One major similarity was the role of the femme fatale, who was instrumental in leading the protagonist down a dark path. There was also the protagonists’ decision at the end to bring her to justice, albeit two totally different methods. The two most notable differences for me were that the detective angle was not as pronounced in “Double Indemnity”. We were also allowed a peek into the protagonists’ thoughts as he narrated the film through his confession.