Matt Connarton Unleashed: Erich Pilcher reviews Double Indemnity.

Office memorandum wild enough to bottom Keys, Claims Manager, Los Angeles, July

sixteenth, nineteen thirty eight. Dear Keys, I suppose you would call us

a confession when you hear it. I don't like the word confession. I

just want to set you right about something you couldn't see because it was smack

up against your nose. You think it's such a hot potato as a claims

manager. It's such a wolf on a phony claim. Maybe let's take a

look at that Didricson claim accident in double indemnity. You were pretty good in

there for a while. Keys. You said it wasn't an accident. Check,

he said it wasn't suicide. Check, you said it was murder.

Check. You thought you had a cold all wrapped up in tissue paper with

pink ribbons around it. It was perfect, except it wasn't because you made

one mistake, just one little mistake, when it came to picking the killer,

you picked the wrong guy. Do you want to know who killed Diedrickson?

Little tight to that cheap cigar of here? His kids? I killed

Diedrickson? Maybe Walter f Insurance Sales thirty five years old, unmarried, no

visible scars until a while ago. That is as I killed him. I

killed him for money and for a woman, and I didn't get the money,

and I didn't get the woman. Probably, isn't it. Double indemnity

is an insurance clause that pays out double the policy limit if the insured individual

dies due to an accident. It is a common provision, but for our

intents and purposes, it defines the start of the film noir genre. Released

in nineteen forty four, directed by Billy Wilder. He also co wrote this

film with famed hard boiled detective writer Raymond Chandler. Double Indemnity leaves the captivating

tale of insurance salesman Walter Naff played by Fred McMurray, who, on what

appears to be a standard sales call, meets the soultry in alluring Phyllis Dietrichson

Barbara Stanwick and becomes instantly smitten. This leads Naff down a road of lust

murder in Deception. The film also features the fast talking film legend Edward G.

Robinson as Barton Keys, an adjuster that sniffs out phony claims with ease.

Fast talking is a primary staple of film noir and really drives this film

with its biting dialogue and crisp words. First, we will hear the end

of the initial conversation between missus Dietrichson and Naf. The dialogue is so powerful,

profound in verbose. Here also try and pick up on the innuendo between

the two. And then at the conclusion of this scene we hear another fantastic

example of a film noir staple, haunting voiceover narration by Naff. Here is

my insurance man art you miss Nith eleven years doing pretty well. It's a

living you handle just automobile insurance or kinds all kinds, fire, earthquake,

fath public liability group, insurance, industrial stuff, and so on right down

the line. Accident insurance, accident insurance show, mister Didickson, we should

tell me was some great on that ankleand just my name as for instance,

tell us a Lissa, I think I like that, but you're not sure.

You have to drive it around the black a couple of times, mister

Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening around eight thirty. He'll be

in then my husband. You were anxious to talk to him, weren't you.

Yeah, it was, But I'm sort of getting over the idea.

If you know what I mean. There's a speed limit in this state,

mister Neff, forty five miles an hour. How beasts I going off,

I'd say around ninety. Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me

a ticket. Suppose I let you off for the warning this time. Suppose

it doesn't take. Suppose I have to work you over the knuckles. Suppose

I must start crying and put my head in your shoulder. Suppose you try

putting it on my husband's shoulder that tears it A thirty tomorrow evening, Then

that's what I suggested. You'll be here too, I guess. So I

usually am same chair, same perfume, same ankle. I wonder if I

know what you mean. I wonder if you wonder it was a hot afternoon

and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along that street. How

could I have known that the murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle. Maybe you

would have known Key's the minute you mentioned accident insurance, but I didn't.

I felt like a million when dissecting this film. It would be near criminal

to not talk about the performance of Edward G. Robinson. This film is,

in my opinion, his most underrated performance. As Barton Keys, he

steals the scene every time he appears. His mannerism's voice and natural short stature

make him the perfect claims adjuster. Our next two clips are examples of this.

When we first encounter Keys, he's arguing with a claimant seeking to get

paid on a claim. Here how Keys turns the tables with smooth direct delivery.

Then after erstwhile lovers Phyllis and Nef conspire and successfully kill her husband to

attempt to cash in on the double indemnity on the accidental death policy. Hear

how Keys has his suspicions, and he brings them to neth in which he

is confidently and we find out later hauntingly painfully accurate, all on the simple

hunch. Come on, come on, garl Opus, you're not kidding anybody

with that line of balls. You're in the Chaman, you know it says

you. All I want is my money. There's you. All are you

going to get is the cops? Oh hello, water, this is Sam

Garlopus from Minglewood. For sure, I omos a glopus wrote a policy on

his truck. Oh hey, mister Glopus. I ain't so good. My

truck burned down. Yeah. Now, look, glopus. Every month hundreds

of claims come to this desk. Some of them are phonies, and I

know which ones. How do I know? Because my little man tells me

what little man? The little man in here. Every time one of these

phonies comes along, it ties knots in my stomach. I can't eat.

Yours is one of them, gylpus. That's how I knew your claim was

crooked. So what did I do? I send the tokar over to your

garage this afternoon and they checked up that burned out truck of yours. And

what did they find? They found what was left of an eat pile of

shavings, by shavings and once you shunk with kerosene and dropped a match on.

Look, mister, I'm just a poor guy. Maybe I made a

mistake. That's one way of putting it. I ain't feeling so blue to

mister had est man to sign us near field? Fine signed what it's a

waiver on your claim right here? Yeah, yeah, now you're an honest

man again. Goodbye, going opens. I ain't got no more truck,

honest, it's gone through bugs. There's a lot of dough when I live

Smaan, I got opens. Don't you not open the door? Just put

your hand on the knob, turn it to the left, now pull it

towards you. That's the boys. Thank you, mister kids And now keys

suspicions, it's on your mind. Broken leg? The guy had a broken

leg. What are you talking about? Talking about Dietrichson? He had accident

insurance, didn't he? Yeah? And then he broke his leg, didn't

he? So what? And he didn't put an acclaim? Why didn't he

put an a claim? Why what are you driving it? Wad? I

had dinner two hours ago. Maybe he's stuck halfway little man? Hears is

acting up again. It there's something wrong with the Dietrichson case. Or because

it didn't file a claim. Maybe he just didn't have time. Maybe he

just didn't know that he was insured. No, No, that couldn't be

it. You would deliver the policy to impersonally, didn't you? He got

his check? Try got any boy, cob Netnesota. No, I haven't

Waler. I've been living with us a little man for twenty six years.

He's never failed me yet. There's got to be something wrong or maybe Norton

was right. Maybe it was suicide. No, not suicide, but not

an accident either. What else? Look, Walter, a guy takes out

an accident policy. It was worth one hundred thousand dollars if he's killed on

the train, and two weeks later he's killed on the train, and not

in the train accident, mind you, but falling off some silly observation car.

Do you know what the mathematical probability of that is? One out of

oh, I don't know how many billions, and add to that the broken

leg. Now it it just can't be the way it looks. Something has

been worked on us. So just what murder? Don't you have any keepam

into something? Oh? Sorry, what a salt of water? No?

No, no, who do you suspect? Well? Maybe I like to

make things easy for myself, but I always tend to suspective beneficiary Meoi,

Yeah, that wide, I dame. They just didn't know anything about anything,

or you're crazy because she wasn't even on the train. I know she

wasn't, Waltering. I don't claim to know how it was worked, who

worked it, But all I know is that it was worked. I've got

to get to a drugstore. This thing feels like a hunk of concrete inside

me in night Water. All right, Keys, see the arts of the

water. Yeah, I'd like to move in on all right now tonight,

Whether Northmans tripe fancis ideas about a company policy. I'd have the police after

her so faster to make a headspin. They put her through the wringer and

bother of the things they would squeeze out. I mean, I haven't got

a single thing to go on, keys, Oh, not too much.

Just twenty six years, experience all the percentage there is. And let's hunk

a concrete in my stomach and one of those things night Keys, So long

water. What makes filmed war such an amazing genre, and one of the

factors that makes it a personal favorite of mine, is that theories always a

conclusion where a caper or plan falls apart. With this being the modern blueprint

for film noir, this film has this, and it is heartbreaking, mesmerizing,

and quite memorable. In our final scene for this week's review, Neph

confronts Phyllis after realizing he was used simply for his knowledge of insurance as an

insider trader in a sick, twisted sort of way, or or was he?

I will leave that up to you the listeners, to decide. Oh,

baby, anybody else in the house, nobody? Why? What's our

music radio up this street? Just like the first time I came there,

isn't it? We were talking about automobile insurance. You were thinking about murder.

I was thinking about that anglers, And what are you thinking about now?

I'm all through thinking, baby, I just came to say goodbye,

goodbye. Where are you going? You're the one that's going, baby,

not me. I'm getting off the trolley car right at this corner. Suppose

you stop being fancy. Let's have it whatever it is, all right.

I'll tell you. My friend of mine's got a funny theory. He says,

when two people come in and murder, it's sort of like they're writing

on a trolley car together. One can't get off without the other. They're

stuck with each other, and they have to go on writing together. They

clear to the end of the line. The last stop is a cemetery.

Maybe you've got something there, your betty has. Two people are going to

right at the end of the line, all right, Only I'm not going

to be one of them. I've got another guy to finish my ride for

me. That's who are you talking about? Acquaintance yours and mister z A

Ketty. Come on, baby, I just got into this thing because I

happen to know a little something about insurance, didn't I I was a sucker.

I'd have been brushed off just as soon as you get your hands on

the money. Nobody wanted to brush you off. Say it. I'm telling

us it's been you and that Seketty guy all along, isn't it. That's

not true. Does's make any difference if it's true or not. The point

is Keys believe Seketty is the one he's been looking for, having like gas

chamber before he knows what's happened doing, what's happening to me all this time?

I'll be silly, baby, What do you think is going to happen

to you? You helped him do the murder, didn't you. That's what

Keys thinks. And what's good enough for Keys? It's good enough for me.

Maybe it's not good enough for me, Walter, Maybe I don't go

for the idea. If you'd rather talk, sometimes people are where they can't

talk under six feet add maybe and if it was you they charged that up

to Sacretti too, wouldn't they? Sure they wouldn't. And that's just what's

gonna happen, baby, because he's coming here at night in about fifteen minutes,

with the cops right behind him. It's all taken care of. That

would make everything lovely for you, wouldn't it right. It's got to be

done before that suit of yours comes to trial. Lorly gets a chance to

sound off. Well, they trip you up in the standing, you start

to go in and drag me down with you. Maybe I had Sagetty here

so they won't get a chance to trip me up, so we can get

the money and be together. That's cute. A film being ambiguous at the

end, or even towards the end is what makes film noir in a class

of its own. It is left to us, the viewers, to make

the final decision on who is right, who is wrong, and what happens

after the words the end flashed across the screen. It comes down to our

morals and our convictions. That is ultimately what decides who is the heroes in

the villains in these films. Those feelings are what makes this genre so well

regarded even today. In the films that are a part of it, some

of the most heralded and highly thought of. This film was very controversial upon

release, with adultery, murdering of a spouse, and the dialogue being loaded

with innuendo. The production code had fits over this film. It did not

deter it from getting widespread praise from critics and being a box office dynamo.

It made five million dollars against a budget of nine hundred and eighty thousand.

It was not nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director

for Wilder, Best Actress Stanwick, and Best Screenplay both Wilder and Chandler,

more than likely due to the controversy surrounding the film. It's sadly and quite

unjustly won none of them. Regardless, this film is the perfect noir film

in an example of everything that makes one of my favorite genres truly amazing.

I hope you'll join me next week when we will look at high school seniors

looking to have fun, lose their virginity, and have some warm apple pie

in a very unconventional way. Our film is the nineteen ninety nineteen classic American

Pie for WMNH and Matt Connerton unleashed. This has been a classic film review

with Eric Culture. Hello, they're must in e