Double Indemnity and Women in the 40s

5. How is Barbara Stanwyck’s character portrayed in this film? What type of angles is she shot in? What type of lighting surrounds her? Is she a good, likeable, moral person? How does she interact with and treat Fred MacMurray’s character? What does this tell you about the way that women were viewed in the 1940s?


Phyllis Dietrichson is the deceitful, diabolical Lady Macbeth of the 1940s. In the film Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck plays Phyllis Dietrichson, a young woman married to a stuck up, unappreciative man. One day she meets Walter Neff, played by Fred MacMurray, who is an aspirational insurance salesman looking to convince the Dietrichsons to purchase automobile insurance. Innocent negotiations ensue between Phyllis and Walter, but the discussion quickly takes a sinister and flirtatious turn. Before you know it, a plot to murder Mr. Dietrichson and to collect indemnity compensation is born.

Barbara Stanwyck's character is portrayed, at first, as an innocently unsatisfied wife that is tired of her husband's complaining. Phyllis and Walter are romantically drawn to each other immediately. The first time she steps down the stairs to meet Walter, the camera dramatically and suggestively focuses on her legs. Before coming down to meet Walter, Phyllis greets him from upstairs wearing only a towel. At this point in the film, Phyllis is not necessarily likeable, as she is obviously flirting with Walter despite being married, but she is also not quite maniacal just yet. She originally treats Walter with enticing suspicion and curiosity as the seeds of her transgressions are being planted. Through this manipulation, it can be seen that women in the 1940s were viewed as untrustworthy, conniving creatures that should be kept under watchful guard.

      

Towards the end of the film, after Walter and Phyllis have murdered Mr. Dietrichson and they have attempted to get away with it, Walter goes to visit Phyllis at her home late at night. He admits to her that he has set her and another man up to take the punishment for his crime. She, in turn, admits that she doesn't love him, has never loved anyone, and only used him to kill her husband so that she could run with all the money. In this scene, Walter enters and finds her relaxed and nonchalantly smoking in an armchair even though they risk discovery. This can be interpreted as women being portrayed in the 40s as heartless, indifferent people with no concern for anyones safety but their own. This view is then fortified when Phyllis shoots Walter. So, Phyllis is not a moral or likeable character and this is so that the mistrust of women in the 40s is demonstrated.