Blog Entry #2

Reading the first eight chapters of the novel, Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain, we can grasp some elements of film noir.  Its characters, scenario and literary elements all completely symbolize the concept of film noir from the early 1940s to the late 1950s.  The plot, which is dark in tone, is about an insurance agent named Walter Huff, an anti-hero who is led astray by greed and lust, falls for a married woman, Phyllis Nirdlinger, the seductive and deadly femme fatale, in which both characters commit the perfect crime by murdering Phyllis’ husband for insurance money.

Double Indemnity takes place mostly in Hollywood and the surrounding urban cities near Los Angeles.  It is written in both a descriptive dialogue and a first person narrative, told in the eyes of the protagonist, Walter Huff, a successful insurance salesman for General Fidelity of California.  Unlike most film noir stories, which are often about private detectives, Huff’s character is basically an ordinary guy who gets involved in a situation that he has no control over.  At first, he seems to be a good guy at heart, but when he meets Phyllis Nirdlinger while trying to sell insurance to her husband, his true character reveals him to be vulnerable, easily being tempted by both money and a woman.  He is easily swayed by his lustful and sexual desire to help Phyllis murder her husband by train accident in the effort to claim insurance money from the same company he works for; but at the same time he can be viewed as a rebel, shown by his desire to double-cross his employers.  “All right, I’m an agent.  I’m a croupier in that game.  I know all their tricks, I lie awake nights thinking up tricks, so I’ll be ready for them when they come at me.  And then one night I think up a trick, and get to thinking I could crook the wheel myself if I could only put a plant out there to put down my bet” (Cain, Double Indemnity: 23-24).

Women in film noir are either the good girl who is characterized as reliable and trustworthy, or the femme fatales who are sultry and seductive women who are manipulative.  In the case for Double Indemnity, the woman in the novel is Phyllis Nirdlinger, a beautiful woman who is personified by her allure and dominance, entraps the hero with promises of money, sex and love.  “She was a woman maybe thirty-one or –two, with a sweet face, light blue eyes, and dusty blonde hair.  She was small, and had on a suit of blue house pajamas.  She had a washed-out look” (Cain, Double Indemnity, 5).  She embodies the seductress who pretends to be helpless but is gradually revealed to be manipulative and deadly.  We are still yet to learn if her character embodies the true meaning of femme fatale, in which she is ultimately responsible for the betrayal and downfall of Walter.

Double Indemnity uses descriptive dialogue to emphasize the characters and story.  To portray a dark tone with the impression of murder and death, the author illustrated it using the line, “That is how I came to this House of Death, that you’ve been reading about in the papers”  (Cain, Double Indemnity, 3).  Though we may be halfway done with the novel, it can be clearly supportable that the book has exhibited some components of film noir.  I look forward to reading it to end to see the dark nature of the story continue and if it is like most film noir stories, the femme fatale double-crosses the main character and both become doomed at the end.