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