blog post #2

The Double Indemnity is a book that shocked me through and through! This book is filled with noir! The sum of what I read was the story of an average insurance salesman who happens upon a client’s wife whom catches his attention with her words and body. Driven by this woman (the femme fatale of the story) he planned and followed through on the murder of her husband. The remaining question is will they get away with it?!

                The easy question is, is this book classified as film noir? I say yes, because of three main characteristics; Lust, murder, and scamming. The scamming produced a murder that was sought because of the lust.  The lust of the movie derives from the wife of an oil company worker who desired the love/lust of another man and the money she could receive from his death. This lustfulness is widely known by the femme fatale of the story. Scot Snyder who wrote personal disorder and the film noir femme fatale put it this way “the film noir femme fatale is a composite of power, lust, and greed”. These women are identified by these characteristics and these are the characteristics of the female of Double Indemnity. Now the main character himself falls for this seductress, this also is common in film noir. Barton Palmer wrote in his article called Characteristics of Film noir “Often, these anti-heroes found themselves tempted by a woman, looking for a man to further their schemes.” and indeed had this guy taken her bait.

                Another aspect of this book that pointed it down the dark road of film noir is their murder! Criminal underworld, scheming, greed, and immoral actions these are more to describe these two characters actions. The main character, the anti-hero, saw what he wanted, saw an opportunity to achieve it and took it no looking back. Never once did this character stop to think or ask himself “is this moral? Should I do this?” no he pushed forward and let reality hit him later. “Hollywood production of a growing number of pessimistic, downbeat crime films.” Is how Lee Horsley described film noir in his article The Development of Post-war Literary and Cinematic Noir. Noir is identified by its crime and corruption.

                Another side to their corruption and crime was the scamming. What an amazing part of the book! This guy knew every in and out of his company. Based off of his knowledge he devised such an elaborate plan that it seems almost fool proof! He rehearsed his every action until perfection. He worked around every obstacle to succeed in his mission. What got me was this was not even his goal. The woman was the one who wanted her husband dead and the money his insurance would provide. The anti-hero did this for her, all of it. Every step, every precaution that was created to cover his every move was all for her but when it was all accomplished he didn’t even want her anymore! What a woman she must have been for this guy to do this for her and then the result of it was hatred towards her for what he had done.