# "Double Indemnity", the movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 9, 2001, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474 "2001-09-09T03:19:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/1 "2001-09-09T03:19:03Z")
I just saw this for the umpteenth time and I have to say, damn! what fabulous film noir. In my opinion, it’s the finest example of the genre, except for maybe “The Maltese Falcon”. I just heard or read the other day that DI is based on a famous real-life murder case. A quick search on the 'net turns up nothing substantial; has anyone else heard this? If so, what are the gruesome details? ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/2 "2001-09-09T04:10:21Z")
According to Tim Dirks’ website on classic film, [filmsite.org](http://filmsite.org), the story is true. > [@](#): > > The film’s story was based on a real-life crime in March of 1927 perpetrated by married Queens housewife Ruth Snyder with lover 32 year-old Judd Gray. She persuaded her “Lover Boy” to kill her husband Albert, after having her spouse take out a $48,000 insurance policy - with a double-indemnity clause. But their sloppy, conspiratorial murder was quickly detected and they were apprehended. Both were convicted and sentenced to death - and were electrocuted in January of 1928. An infamous picture, surreptitiously taken by Thomas Howard of Ruth’s body as she was executed, was published on the front page of the New York Daily News. The Snyder-Gray case in the late 1920s prompted the release of Picture Snatcher (1933) - it starred James Cagney as the daring newspaper photographer who took the taboo picture of a woman dying in the electric chair. It was remade as Escape From Crime (1942). If it weren’t for Mary Astor in _The Maltese Falcon_, Barbara Stanwyck would be **the** classic _femme fatale._ ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/3 "2001-09-09T09:15:57Z")
I’d agree that it’s second in film noir, but I’d put “The Third Man” first. “The Maltese Falcon” would come in just behind “M” in fourth. “Double Indemnity” has my favorite dialog of any movie. Nobody outside of a crime novel actually talks this way, but, damn, they should. The first scene in the house reads like a bad imitation of film noir on paper, but it somehow works specatacularly on screen. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/4 "2001-09-09T16:08:58Z")
You should read the novel. The movie IS great, but it veered away from the book’s plot in certain areas, especially toward the end…and I think James M. Cain had better ideas for how Neff and Phyllis should end up than the screenwriting team of Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler did. Chandler’s great and all, but Cain had a delightfully diseased creative brain…the last few pages of the novel are seriously spooky stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/5 "2001-09-09T16:18:20Z")
I watched this movie for the first about a month ago. It was good. The script was good and pace and the lighting and everything was good. But I just couldn’t get past the fact that he was the dad on My Three Sons and I could see him as a bad guy. There is something else in the film that blew me away. After he first visits her at her home he stops and had a beer. He gets it at a drive-in restaurant and the car hop brings the beer to him so he can drink it right in his car! Times have changed ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/6 "2001-09-09T16:24:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zebra \* > **I just couldn’t get past the fact that he was the dad on My Three Sons and I could see him as a bad guy.** Better skip _The Caine Mutiny_, then…his Lt. Keefer character is a _real_ prick. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2001, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/7 "2001-09-09T16:31:09Z")
I saw the Cain Mutiny a looooong time ago when I was about 8. So I don’t remember. Of course I do remember Bogey and those marbles or ball bearings. I’ll look it up on IMDB. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2001, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/8 "2001-09-10T14:03:08Z")
Zebra, another way to shed your feelings that Fred MacMurray is Mr. Regular Guy Next Door is to see him in “The Apartment”, where he plays an A number 1 first class heel. Yes, we liked the beer at the drive-in, too. Those were the good old days! Danimal, thanks for the quote. It sounds like the real-life perpetrators were nowhere near as clever as Neff and Phyllis. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2001, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/9 "2001-09-10T20:57:15Z")
I, too, recently saw DI for the first time. One line confused me. During the first scene in the house, there is a back and forth that goes something like: Walter: (Introducing himself) Neff with two F’s, like the story. Phyllis: What story? Walter: (Surprised) The Philadelphia Story. I even more recently saw “The Philadelphia Story” and thought that might give me a clue, but it didn’t. Is this some 1940’s gag about there being two F sounds in the word Philadelphia. It was certainly lost on me. By the way, two great films. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2001, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/10 "2001-09-11T00:42:14Z")
I love Neff whining about the ritzy folks and “their thirty thousand dollar homes.” Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2001, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/11 "2001-09-11T00:53:24Z")
I personally enjoy Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) telling Neff after he turns down a job as an investigator that “I always used to think you were a little bit smarter than the other guys, turns out you were only just a little bit taller.” Or words to that effect. Those lines should be my motto since I’m 6’5". ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2001, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-indemnity-the-movie/80474/12 "2001-09-11T03:24:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Pashnish Ewing \* > \*\*I, too, recently saw DI for the first time. One line confused me. During the first scene in the house, there is a back and forth that goes something like: > > Walter: (Introducing himself) Neff with two F’s, like the story. > Phyllis: What story? > Walter: (Surprised) The Philadelphia Story. > > I even more recently saw “The Philadelphia Story” and thought that might give me a clue, but it didn’t. > > Is this some 1940’s gag about there being two F sounds in the word Philadelphia. It was certainly lost on me. > \*\* You’ve got it right. It’s a joke about the two f sounds that are really spelled Ph. Neff is an intellectual snob who looks down on all of these people who aren’t as smart as he is, but have more money. It’s probably Neff’s standard intoduction, intended to make fun of those who don’t get the joke.