Blog Entry #2: "Double Indemnity": double protection against damage or loss

The cover of the “Double Indemnity” novel, written by James M. Cain shows a big train in black and white, already illustrating main elements of film noir. The main character’s name is Walter Huff, an insurance salesman who has fallen in love with Phyllis Nirdlinger the married woman or the classic femme fatale character who is desperate and chooses to manipulate Huff into planning the perfect murder against her husband and betraying everything he had ever worked for. Their relationship shows a strong example of Huff, “the male protagonist in film noir who has to inevitably choose (or have the fateful choice made for him) between the women and invariably he picks the femme fatale who destructively goads him into committing murder or some other crime of passion.” A very relevant part of the novel that I believe relates to a key element in film noir is after the murder was done, Huff is at his house in his room and had just finished a conversation with Ike Shwartz (another salesman) to complete his plan so that he would an alibi and nobody would have any suspicions of him and Phyllis that could connect to the murder, is contemplating about what had just happened and says “Soon as he hung up everything cracked. I dived for the bathroom. I was sicker than I had ever been in my life. After that passed I fell into bed. It was a long time before I could turn out the light. I lay there staring into the dark. Every now and then I would have a chill or something and start to tremble. Then I started to think. I tried not to, but it would creep up on me. I knew then what I had done. I had killed a man to get a woman. I had put myself in her power, so there was one person in the world that could point a finger at me, and I would have to die. I had done all that for her, and I never wanted to see her again as long as I lived. That’s all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate.”(Cain 54) Now if that is not a perfect example of self-regret or internal conflict, hence crime from within in film noir, then I don’t know what is! The dark things a man does for love that has him trapped in a situation that can have fatal repercussions with a woman who is crazy, manipulative, and gorgeous just waiting for somebody to find out what crime they’ve done. This kind of quality gives the readers or audience that feeling of suspense that makes one think what is going to happen next.  Other good examples of film noir from the novel is the night-time setting on the railroad tracks where Huff and Phyllis were dragging the dead corpse of her husband to make it look like he had fallen off the train by accident, clearly showing the lie and crime they had done or the part when Huff had just finished talking on the phone with Phyllis, he says “I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake. That night I did something I hadn’t done in years. I prayed.” (Cain 70), pretty much telling what in the world has he gotten himself into.  

Silent Thoughts

There are many different ways one can define what film noir and neo-noir is, what similarities they have and how they differ. Personally, I find this genre very interesting and it feels as though not many people know what film noir is, but when they do, it really grabs your attention and interest. So far, from what I’ve been reading about film noir in articles is that the society, the people, in these stories described in this genre, have a tone and setting with qualities that show despair, self-conflict, desire, and many other dark characteristics I have yet to discover.