Is Double Indemnity true crime?
the true crime that's worth your time
The crime
Ruth Snyder married her older boss, Albert, in 1915, but a decade later, Ruth had tired of him – she liked to go out, he didn't; Albert didn't "like" much of anything, it seems, except decorating the marital home with keepsakes from his dead fiancée, and not letting Ruth and their daughter Lorraine have pets – and of quiet domesticity in Queens, NY.
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She embarked on an affair with milquetoast corset salesman (...you heard me) Judd Gray, and with the aid of bootleg cocktails, they worked themselves up to kill Albert, in such a way that the insurance policy Ruth had tricked Albert into signing up for would pay double upon his demise.
It took Ruth more than a few tries to knock Albert off; it took detectives quite a bit less time to figure out the burglary Ruth and Judd had staged around Albert's lifeless corpse was nothing of the sort. The crime is mostly remembered today because Ruth came to embody the perils of the "flapper" lifestyle; because a tabloid journo snuck a camera into the execution chamber and snapped a picture of Ruth at the moment of her electrocution; and because the case is said to have inspired…
The story
…Double Indemnity, which if it isn't the noiriest noir that ever noired is in the top three. And it does share a lot of broad elements with the real case, starting with the scheming couple, Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray); and the titular double-indemnity clause that inspires their more elaborate machinations to rid themselves of Phyllis's snappish husband – who doesn't even get a name (he's played by Tom Powers).
But it differs a lot too. The staging involves a suicide on the train, not a home burglary; the insurance fraud is suggested by an insurance agent, Neff himself, and not a greedy civilian; the daughter is a stepdaughter, and she sort of gives up the ghost but not in the same way; the noir-crossed lovers get tripped up not by their own incompetence but by the determination of Neff's boss (Edward G. Robinson), et cetera and so on.
And, you know, it's more glamorous – and, thanks to the story polish of James M. Cain's novel by Raymond Chandler and director Billy Wilder, better written as well. Is it true crime, though?
You could argue that it doesn't matter if it's good – and it is, and I'll talk a little more about why in a moment. You could also argue that based-on-a-true-story projects take liberties with IRL cases all the time, and I've got no problem with that per se; it's not a "fidelity to the police file" issue (and DI has stronger source-case ties than some classics). It's more about the elements that define a noir picture, including profound cynicism, darkness both figurative and literal, the braiding of eroticism and violence, the "undomesticated" woman who's both a catalyst for and at the mercy of the plot, and the idea that everyone is compromised and no one will get traditional justice. Sound familiar? Sure it does. You've seen that documentary.
The Venn diagram of that and true crime isn't a perfect circle, but it's not exactly a fingernail clipping of overlap, either. Noir stories that may not derive from a specific case almost certainly proceed from or react to consuming headlines or true-detective rags about that type of case, the dirty cop or the double cross or whatever the particulars. The effect is that a noir imagining of a true story feels like a mythic archetype, and the effect of that for me is to wonder whether all noir isn't a comment on the true-crime genre and the idea of justice.
Which would then make it true crime, functionally.
The answer is well above my pay grade, so let's get back to Double Indemnity itself, which I'd somehow never seen, and thank goodness the connection to the Snyder-Gray case let me remedy that – it's fantastic. The framing device that lets Neff narrate the murder plot to his boss, Keyes, as well as to us, might seem clumsy on paper, but it's elegantly done, and the dialogue, my Lord.
Yeah, Neff says "baby" a lot, but the wit in certain exchanges is so deft; it's a quickness of thought that's diverting but not disrespectful. Keyes grumbles at one point about his boss and his "striped-pants ideas," which is a novella about new-old-money managers in three words. "His name was Jackson. …Probably still is"? "'Margie.' I bet she drinks from the bottle"? Both also Keyes; Robinson gets most of the good lines, and knows just what to do with them.
It's striking how textured and non-archetypal the performances are in this ur-noir film – how measured Stanwyck is, not overdoing the sultry leans or the lash-batting. Not a few of the femmes fatale that came after her really strain to do what Stanwyck's Phyllis just…is. MacMurray is easy, appealing, not trying too hard to hardboil his somewhat golly-gee physical presentation. Wilder, as usual, knows what his story is and how his actors can tell it, and arranges for that to happen. It's got its flaws (the actor playing Nino Zachetti looks 20 years older than he should), and you may find yourself pausing the film to admire how perfectly the L.A. Confidential costume designer replicated Phyllis's blouses for Kim Basinger, or wonder just how much midcentury plot hinged on the buying/wearing/leaving behind of hats. But it's a classic for a reason, and I recommend it.
And it has a strong enough resemblance to a notorious case – and is a scathing enough comment on corruption and dead-girl stories, intentionally or not – that I think it is true crime. - SDB