Blog Entry 4 Double Indemnity

Q 1. Discuss the contrasts between the endings of the novel and the film. Which seems more appropriate for film noir? Why?

Firstly I didn't like the ending in the novel as I did not understand the descriptions so well. But thanks to the class discussions I came to understand it a little better. While I understood the visual of the film version a lot more and have decided that I like the ending of the film noir version a lot better. I see in it a lot of noir elements; like within the film you have a sardonic protagonist (being humorous in a grim or sarcastic way). You also see dark shadows, and venetian blinds which cast-off many bar-lined shadows across some of the characters giving thoughts of them being trapped in the situation in mise-en scene their in on camera. And of course the femme fatale: mysterious and double-crossing.

In the novel the idea that the two of them, Huff and Phyllis Nirdlinger being found together on ship, and that they sense the captain knows just who they are by the look he gives the two of them as he exist the radio room ( that neither of them will get off ship except in handcuffs), as they rome past walking the decks contemplating their great suicidal escape that evening by jumping overboard in the rear aft of the ship hopefully into the waiting jaws of that big ol' shark they spotted following the ship earlier that day to finish them both off. I can see how this leaves the the story open to the imagination and suggestive thinking and personal interpretation. Yet I like to see a finale. Like as in the film, where Neff gets it, but only in turn to kill that vixen.

Q 5. During the title sequence, a man on crutches hobbles towards the camera. Explain the significance of this image. Who in the story does this man represent? Why would this be an appropriate image to show at the beginning of the film? How does this sequence anticipate later developments in the film?

To start with I didn't think to look up the phrase double indemnity in the dictionary, until I started writing all these blogs. Indemnified: 1. to protect or insure (a person) against penalties incurred by his actions etc. 2. to compensate(a person) for injuries suffered. Indemnity: 1. to protect or insure (a person) against penalties incurred by his actions. 2. compensation for damages done. But then back in 1944 I would think there would have been something about that phrase that would have understood just as today by audiences that tells them what the movie's about if they knew the meaning of the phrase. I guess especially if you're in the insurance business or you have knowledge of an infinitive broad working word knowledge; I don't. But still Walter explains the meaning to Phyllis in the novel and I think he does the same in the film if I'm not mistaken. The significance of the man on the crutches symbolizes Mr Deidrickson whom we soon learn about as the film roles; but it also represents the impostor, that of Mr. Neff the insurance salesman turned murderer. I don't fully understand why it is appropriate to show this in the beginning of the film, except other than this is what the plot follows in the storyline. This sequence anticipates later developments in the film, as this is our first view on the big screen and at first we don't know what it means our self's, but later as the storyline envelops the audience, we begin to follow the trail of intrigue and the plans and design for murder. And as the players who are involved play out each scene, we watch to see if inevitably they get caught or some how they pull it off and get away with the crime; as it turns out they don't. As usual those who do wrong get caught and find themselves either serving long sentences behind bars or end up paying the piper with their very lives.

Blog Entry Three: Double Indemnity

In the novel written by James W. Cain, first published in 1935 and came to film noir in 1944, the main characters of the novel develop a more intense interaction with one another as the story order increases. I will assume to attempt to answer question No. 1. Most good Noir tales involve a detective who is able to solve the crime or uncover the truth. Discuss who in the novel assumes the role of the detective figure. What qualities does he possess that makes him suitable for the role of the hard-boiled detective?

It is of my opinion that there are two possible detective figures attributed in the story order of this novel Double Indemnity. First and foremost and throughout the novel, as if there had been any other than the trustworthy Keyes, the head of the Claims Department. He has a real sense for the insurance business and for sniffing out fraudulent claims and discovering the truth. As with the Nirdlinger case the police claimed suicide, but they couldn't prove it. And all along Keyes kept saying there was something more to it, that he couldn't prove it as yet but that he believed Phyllis Nirdlinger had something to do with murdering her husband for the accident policy claim money. He also reads modern psychology books to help himself to identify with why clients in his business do what they do. Keyes spends a lot of time investigating the claims that run through his office thoroughly.

After Walter Huff lay in the hospital bed after having been shot and he confesses to Keyes that he killed Nirdlinger, Keyes then explained the backstory of Beniamino Sachetti to Huff that Sachetti was the son of a doctor who ran a sanatorium and that Phyllis at that time was the head nurse at a time well before she knew Mr. Nirdlinger, and this is where Beniamino first met Phyllis while she worked for his father. That three children had died under her care of Pneumonia at the sanatorium and that Sachetti's father took the rap for that and soon lost his business and thereafter soon died. Then Beniamino took up with Miss Lola Nirdlinger and soon found out from her that her step-mother was non other than Phyllis Nirdlinger that she had married her father shortly after her own mother the late Mrs. Nirdlinger had died of Pneumonia while in concert with Phyllis at the Lake Arrowhead cabins a year earlier. What Sachetti found out was that the late Mrs. Nirdlinger was the executrix of one the three children that one of them was due to inherit a lot of property which left her as the next in line to inherit, after which leaves young Lola as next to inherit the property. Beniamino stopped seeing Lola without a reason and this after she had moved out of the house into her own apartment after her fathers death; and put his attention to Phyllis Nirdlinger and started pumping her fast and furiously for all the information he thought he might attain from her about any of these deaths so as to first clear his fathers name and then to help bring Phyllis to supposed justice as well as to protect Lola from becoming the next victim to die in the scandal of who was next in line to inheritance rites for the property left after her own mother's passing.

I see Keyes oversight to be a strength and fortitude to his character building in this story and his pursuant investigative endeavors make for a strong conclusion on his part in the story's ending, though I don't believe he should have let anybody get away with it...as for Beniamino, he was very encouraged with a possible outcome to clearing his fathers name and bearing witness to the truth, I can only hope he and Lola can work there differences out and compromise and still be friends.

Jerry Hugard Blog 2

   In the novel Double Indemnity written by James M. Cain which first came to life when first published in 1935; and soon afterwards came to film in 1944 during the classic period of film-noir which began during 1941. In the words of Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, this is noir at its finest, and I concur with this definition for this novel: "film noir is crime from within; from the point of the view of the criminal." As with this novel the main lead character Walter Huff speaks a narrative throughout the text describing the tone and mood and criminal behavior that was set into motion, spoken in his own words. This whole plot seemingly well planned in advance from years of observation in the insurance business and while he was learning from experience and watching persons collect on, or even try to collect on fraudulent claims and accident claims that were non-the-less fouled up murder schemes gone awry. He has put it together to do the same type of behavior but not the same mistakes; only when an opportune moment develops does he spring his planning into action.

   From the article"Primary Characteristics and conventions of film noir; Themes and Styles," I also sensed here a real truth that in these old noir films that the protagonists are almost always driven by their past human weaknesses and failures which subconsciously leads them to repeat former mistakes, in hopes of finding different outcomes such as Huff hopes to find in the midst of this scheme.

   I found the narrative by Walter Huff to set the tone and mood of a business type conman making pitches to consumers to attain his commission on all insurance contracts that he handles for his office that he works at, The General Fidelity of California. He's all business and knows his stuff; how to gain access to households and to businesses where undoubtedly he arrives unannounced and with out invitation, nor appointment, and knows how to sell the angle of the bid for insurance policies like they were the newest craze. And that's just what he did do with Mr. Nirdlinger finally.  He slipped him an accident policy to sign, whereas Mr. Nirdlinger only thought he was signing his auto  renewal insurance policy. This set in motion the rest of the plot to take Mr. Nirdlinger life with his accomplice which was his wife Phyllis Nirdlinger to whom Walter shows at first a deep devotion too. You see he has just sold his soul, his career, his future his very destiny, in order to kill a man for this woman. Walter Huff has become entrapped with this femme fatale, and he has done this thing to get her, her and a portion of the money. The mood and tone fit well with the description of primary moods of classic film noir which are melancholy, alienation, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, and paranoia. As the beginning of our story begins very melancholy, everyday routine drumming up business. But then ends up with paranoia and hidden guilty consciousnesses as the truth begins to be pieced together. Its not suicide they say, but they can't prove it. They conclude its murder, now they've set a trap and sit back and wait to see who shows up in the snare.

   I agree with "The dynamism of violent death," which has set the stage for such a mix of foul play and murder as I have not read up til now in a long time, gives suspense to this thriller; during Walter's narrative I became entranced and started to identify myself with both the criminals and the crime and I became an unsuspecting and willing accomplice.

I'm attempting to answer question one. By way of accessing another article and attempting to summarize it, by which I believe I might compose a description of the content therein, for The Neo-Noir 90s article.

Mark Conrad references that "...we should all be able to recognize a classic film noir by now when we see one, what with its shadowy lighting, and tilted camera shots. That the classic film noir's will utilize any number of themes that make it a noir; such as bad guys as heroes, and good guys doing bad awful things." A sample of a noir classic is in James M. Cain's, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946), where the antihero drifter gets himself hired on at a small cafe-diner, only to begin a courtship and affair with the owners wife, who lures him into killing her husband, which ultimately leads to our antiheroes conviction and death penalty sentence, which ends with his demise. 

Neo-Noir: "Conrad states that the term neo-noir describes any film coming after the classic film noir period from the 1940s-1958. That these later films usually are not shot in black-n-white film, and likely do not contain any crazy lighting, shadowing effects, or angled camera shots of the classic noir films, and most if not all are filmed in Technicolor. Tidbit of added information:Conrad continues, that as well, in neo-noir films of today because of the abandonment of government censorship, and what with the introduction on the new ratings codes, how neo-noir film makers get away with a lot more than did their film noir predecessor's in their own time period. Conrad further explains that for example, under the old censorship rules, no crime was expected to go unpunished...but, how rather that under the new ratings codes, in neo-noir films of today, crimes and criminals can and do go expectantly unpunished, often even in vigilantism scenes." 
(Mark Conrad. "The Philosophy Of Neo-Noir." EBSCOhost. WEB. 24 Aug. 2013).