Blog Entry Two: Double Indemnity

                In the article “Towards a Definition of Film Noir,” authors Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton  state, “It is the presence of crime which gives film noir its most constant characteristic. “The dynamism of violent death” is how Nino Frank evoked it, and to the point is well taken.  Blackmail, accusation, theft, or drug trafficking set the stage for a narrative where life and death are at stake. Few cycles in the entire history of film have put together in seven or eight years such a mix of foul play and murder.  Sordidly or bizarrely, death always comes at the end of the tortured journey.  In every sense of the word, a noir film is a film of death.”

                The above quote fits very well with the book “Double Indemnity” by James M. Cain. From the beginning, the stage has been set with a plan to set up a false accident insurance to the murder of a hard-working husband to the cover-up and on to the investigation. The details are amazing. The wife comes up with this plan to kill him in his pool and make it look like the husband hit his head and drown which gets shot down by the insurances salesman / newly found lover. He says that this is a horrible plan and we should kill your husband my way. He then goes on with this very well thought out and detailed plan that includes the upfront portion of tricking the husband into signing the accident insurance documents and issuing another check to pay for the accident insurance without knowing it. They allow months to go by before they put their plan in to action. The husband breaks his ankle which only assists their plan even more. Next comes the murder scene. This scene is set on a dark road down the street from the victims own house. The wife tricks the husband into walking back to the house with a broken leg just to get her purse. The insurance salesman climbs in the car lays in the backseat and they pick up the husband from the front porch as if doing him a favor. They drive toward the train station while the salesman barely breathes to avoid being heard. Suddenly, the salesman put his hand over the husband’s mouth. Through the fighting he is able to take the cigar out of the husband’s frantic hands and hand it to the wife. He then grabs the husband’s crutch and breaks his neck with it. The author describes the husband as curled down in his seat with a broken neck, only having a mark above his nose from the crutch crosspiece. They continue their plan by tying up they husband and continuing on to the train station. The salesman is dressed up to look like the husband with a wrapped leg and all. They wife intercepts anyone that could come into contact with the husbands impersonator and he makes his way on the train. Once on the train the wife says goodbye and the salesman has to make small talk to get rid of the man on the back of the train. Once the coast is clear and they hit their meeting point, he jumps off the train. The story then gets very intense as the salesman waits for the wife to show whit her husband’s body. Any possible problem goes through his head as he worries and waits. The wife finally shows up, somehow carrying her 200 pound husband over her shoulders. The abandon the body and while pulling away they throw the hat out the window.

                This death and the detailed plan leading up to it was very violent and fitting to the quote at the beginning.  There was a great deal of foul play and murder tied up in this book and I really enjoyed it up to this point.