Something I’ve never grokked about DOUBLE INDEMNITY: the bit where Keyes makes Neff an offer.
“How’d you like a $50 cut in salary?”
“Do I laugh now or wait til it gets funny?”
“…I’m serious.”
Neff gets asked to stop selling policies and instead go to work as an assistant to Keyes. “What’s troubling you is that fifty-buck cut, isn’t it?” Neff’s reply: “That’d trouble anybody!” Keyes: “And you want to tell me you’re not interested. You don’t want to work with your brains. All you want to do is work with your finger on the doorbell for a few bucks more a week … I picked you for the job, not because I think you’re so darn smart, but because I thought you were a shade less dumb than the rest of the outfit. Guess I was wrong. You’re not smarter, Walter; you’re just a little taller.”
Solid quip, but: shouldn’t there be, like, a line where Neff’s concerns about the money get addressed? Something about how Keyes will eventually vacate the job, and Neff can then make the big bucks as his successor? Or how, sure, Neff has had a couple of great quarters, but a commission-based sales job is a roll of the dice while this job is guaranteed income?
Or something?
Now, we could maybe assume that something like that is in play, and assume that Neff is too dumb to realize it, and assume that Keyes doesn’t mention it because Neff failing to realize it is the evidence that Neff is just too-dumb-albeit-tall for the job; but (a) holy shit, that’s a lot of assuming; and (b) isn’t it just as easy to assume that Keyes doesn’t mention it because it isn’t the case? Or: that it is the case, but Neff isn’t the dumb one; Keyes, the one who’s pitching this to a guy who keeps explaining that his concern is the pay cut because his priority is money, is too dumb to realize he should mention what Neff would want to hear?
Instead, it’s just: Tee-Hee, You’re Not Smart Because You Want To Keep Making X Amount Of Money And Here I Am Offering X Minus Fifty!
We have people all the time going from Sales into Training, Compliance, Business Development, etc. even though they will make less money, often a lot less money.
Not spending your week away from home, driving a thousand miles a week, dealing with asshole customers or even just constant rejection, has a compensatory value, beyond money.
Oh, to some people, sure — but once Neff explains that, no, as it happens, he’s one of the people for whom money has the greater compensatory value, then why the quip about his smarts or lack thereof? He has a preference, and so declines that pay-cut job offer accordingly; if the other stuff genuinely doesn’t bother him as much as the pay cut would, then wouldn’t it be less smart of him to accept?
$50 then is over $600 now. You want to take a $600 cut to sit behind a desk and be a paper pusher? Some people like getting out, talking to people, “selling”. And sometimes banging a lonely housewife. How much is that worth?
Plus, you know, Neff was already thinking about scamming the insurance company. He didn’t need to be persuaded by Phyllis, he was already there ahead of her. He couldn’t do that if he was an investigator.*
Remember, Keyes liked Neff, almost like a son, so he’s talking to Neff like a father would. In the original ending, Keyes was there when they executed Neff.
* I always had trouble with Keyes’ job, and the nature of the company. It seemed Keyes’ job wasn’t so much as to catch cheaters, but was to find ways to not pay under any circumstances. To me, the consumer, Keyes is an asshole employee of an shitty company. They were fighting to not pay Phyllis’ claim even before the inconsistencies came to light.
Because Keyes trusted his gut that something wasn’t right about the situation, i.e. that the customer was trying to cheat the company. From there, he started looking for evidence that his gut was right. As a customer, I don’t have a problem with that.
I’d always assumed the pay cut would be temporary as Neff took a lower position on a higher ladder. The reward would come later as Neff worked his way up the management track. Keyes was offering Neff a spot on the management career path. Neff was probably making more as a veteran low level employee than a brand new college grad just entering the company as a middle manager. No one likes the starting pay cut. But for some, it would be an opportunity for greater overall advancement and wealth.
And in my opinion, Double Indemnity is the Ne Plus Ultra of film noir.
I feel like it’s just goes without saying. Maybe the contemporary audience would have understood it better. I feel like there’s a certain amount of class consciousness going on here that modern folks don’t get. Neff is a senior man in the Lower Class of the company whereas Neff is inviting him up to the Upper Class. I think folks would have more likely seen it that way back then. It could also explain a little of Neffs refusal. He has the pride of considering himself a real working man doing the real work of the company. Not a paper pusher.
The hilarious part is, I’m now picturing a salesman taking that job because he figures it goes without saying — and, a year later, finally asking Keyes about it, and getting told, “what? No, I put all my cards on the table: you take a pay cut to do some meaningful and interesting work with your brain at a desk, and, uh, that’s all I said, because that’s all there is. Wait, all this time you thought this was an eventual path to more wealth? Jesus, you’re as dumb as you are tall.”
Everyone knows that bosses get paid more than doorbell pushers. Keyes was telling Walter that he’s too shortsided, or greedy, or dumb to recognize the upside. Maybe it would have put a better button on the scene for Keys to say something like, “In a year that 50 bucks will seem like chump change to you,” but that wasn’t the point of the exchange. The point was to show us that Neff was shortsided, greedy, and dumb, and turning down the job was an example of it
