8. Double Indemnity (1944)
Dir. Billy Wilder
Few femme fatales came as alluring, dangerous, and downright vicious as Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), the wife of a wealthy businessman who convinces an insurance salesman named Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) to help her murder her husband in Double Indemnity. Beside her, almost every other femme fatale in noir seems an imitation. Though frequently overshadowed by post-war ennui and moral ambiguity, the raging battle between the sexes remained an essential part of the genre. The cookie-cutter romantic melodramas so prevalent in Hollywood would receive a new makeover in noir: instead of being an end, romance became a means for power plays and sexual dominance. Consider how Wilder, who co-wrote the film’s screenplay, re-contextualized Neff’s character from his original appearance in James M. Cain’s novel of the same name. In the novel, Neff uses Phyllis as a tool in his sociopathic game to pull a fast one on the insurance company he works for. There’s sexual attraction, but the love quickly curdles into hate. But in the film, Phyllis has Neff wrapped around her pinky finger from the very beginning. In some ways, noir allowed an outlet for female characters usually unheard of in Hollywood filmmaking. Femme Fatales were boldly sexual, powerful, and spat in the face of patriarchal structures. Perhaps that’s why Hollywood always demanded their ultimate destruction.
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