Double Indemnity
The Basic Plot in the Form of a Haiku:
Do you hate your spouse?
You can do away with him -
Just ask Mr. Neff!
My Basic Ramblings: I am waaaaaaaaaaaaay too influenced by fire in movies. After Reservoir Dogs, I would go around lighting my Zippo lighter by snapping my fingers next to it, like Mr. White. After watching this movie, I tried lighting matches one-handed, off my thumb, until I realized (a) if I were to successfully light a match in that fashion, I'd burn my hand; and (b) the matches I was trying to use weren't "strike anywhere" matches, so I probably wouldn't have been able to light them off my thumb anyway.*
And there was plenty of need to light matches in this movie, baby. Everyone smoked everywhere. At home, at the office, on the backs of trains, in the supermarket. My mother told me she fondly remembers smoking at her desk while working as a secretary in a Catholic grade school about twenty years ago, and I remember being able to smoke in a shopping mall in Virginia about five years ago, but it was still weird to see guys (and gals) lighting up nilly-willy, what with today's "Smoking = Pure Evil" mentality. (Smoking may take ten years off your life, but as Denis Leary says, "It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair, adult diaper, kidney dialysis years! You can take those years, we don't want 'em!")
Fred MacMurray, to me previously known only as the "My Three Sons" father and Lt. Tom Keefe from The Caine Mutiny, stars as Walter Neff, insurance agent. Not exactly the most common occupation for the fatally flawed hero of a film noir, but it works, makes it more believable. (There are a lot more insurance agents in the world than there are grizzled alcoholic burned-out private investigators.)
(Wouldn't a combination of My Three Sons and Double Indemnity be great? You could call it My Three Indemnities and Fred MacMurray could go around dispensing advice to Rob and Chip and the other one, and murder femme fatales' husbands in his spare time!)
Anyway, to continue. Barbara Stanwick (and her freaky hair) is Phyllis Dietrichson, the femme fatale who, with her orange juice-can rolled bangs and her anklet and her tight white sweaters convinces Walter that she (and therefore, they) would be oh-so-much happier if her husband were no longer in the proverbial picture of life, and it would be even nicer if she got a little cash in the deal.
This movie is considered by many to be the best example of film noir. For those've you who are unfamiliar with the film noir style, it basically involves:
For all Walter's insistence that his plan is perfect and flawless, it is easily unravelled by Mr. Keyes, his supervisor (Edward G. Robinson). Although I suppose for every seemingly perfect crime, there's one person out there who can figure it out. I do have to admit, though, his plan was pretty good. Probably impossible to do nowadays, 'cause you can't stand outside on trains. (They really yell at you on Amtrak if you stand between cars for more than twenty seconds at a time.)
Ah, trains. The overlooked mode of transportation these days. Trains figure very heavily in movies - one of the Luminere brothers' first films was of a train leaving a station. Then there's The Great Train Robbery. Then you've got this movie, from the 40's. Then there's A Hard Day's Night, and Strangers on a Train, and Throw Momma From The Train, and Under Siege 2: 'Die Hard' on A Train. I like traveling by train - I used to do it a lot, going from Rochester to Poughkeepsie and back, when I was in college. Even when I didn't smoke, I would sit in the smoking car (back when they had them, anyway) - they were always empty and quiet, as opposed to the every-seat-filled-with-a-screaming-child rest of the train.
But I digress.
It's a generally accepted rule of thumb (at least according to Roger Ebert) that there are no superfluous characters in a movie. (The closest thing to an argument that can be brought up against this statement is Marge Gunderson's Asian classmate in Fargo, but Ebert proved that he had a grand purpose). So, knowing that, I knew that Lola's boyfriend Nico would play a part beyond his two-second shot in the middle of the movie. Also figured that the thumb-lighting matches thing would be a significant thing, though it didn't go exactly the way I thought (I thought Neff would reveal himself to be the murderer by the way he lit his matches, not the [rather touching] way Keyes lit his cigarette for him at the end).
So that's Double Indemnity. A double pleasure, waiting for you. Double fresh, double smooth, double delicious to chew.
* This also goes back to my 4th birthday. My grandfather's birthday was the day before mine, and we'd celebrate jointly. On this birthday in question (1977, for those've you scoring at home), my grandfather put out one of the candles on the cake with his fingers. Little Whitney decided to do the same thing, except she didn't realize you had to lick your fingers first. Oops.