After watching the films Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon some notable differences can be seen between the two.  While they both are set within a genre some of the specific conventions within each vary.  The Maltese Falcon can be seen as a standard in the genre while Double Indemnity is fixed around the idea of the genre and twisted to use certain attributes of the genre.  While they are set in the genre some noticeable differences can be seen, one of which can specifically be seen in the characters of The Detective.  They both may be crafted around the idea of the characteristics of the standard Detective but the two are different for numerous reasons while still being conceived as similar.

                As discussed in class we started to speak of the ideas formed around a protagonist.  In The Maltese Falcon Sam Spade is that character and in Double Indemnity it is Walter Neff.  In The Maltese Falcon Sam Spade is a standard detective, which gives off a certain standard tone while in Double Indemnity Walter Neff is an insurance salesman which gives off a different perspective while applying the idea of The Detective to him.  In Double Indemnity since Walter Neff is not associated to the complete lifestyle of The Detective this then leads to different actions and outcomes.  Compared to Sam Spade Walter Neff does far worst things to achieve goals he has set in his agenda.  Sam Spade only did certain actions near the end of The Maltese Falcon so he could try to stay ahead of the game or even just stay in the game while Walter Neff can almost been seen as somewhat of an evil force to some extent.  They are both similar in being taken over by a Femme Fatale, though in the case of Neff it is much more extreme.  Some other similarities that can be seen between the two characters is that they both operate under a certain code and are seen as forces of unknown outcomes in the sense that the audience doesn’t know how far they will go to get what they are trying to achieve.  This is how the code they follow varies depending on the characteristics they instill.

                The two films in terms of narrative approach vary heavily, as in Double Indemnity is set to flashbacks while The Maltese Falcon is linear storytelling.  These two tactics influence a story in many different ways.  Even while we saw Walter Neff recording his statement we did not know he would die at the end.  If The Maltese Falcon was set to flashbacks the film would be much different. By having the flashbacks the audience gets a little extra insight into the character while seeing the events that happened unfold.