Murder Was the Case, With a Touch of Suicide.

Double Indemnity by James M. Cain was positively a definition of Noir. According to the handout "Primary Characteristics and Conventions of Film Noir: Themes and Styles", most of the characteristics were a part of this novel. Which included, moral corruption, evil, quilt, paranoia, detective types, crime and corruption, femme fatales and murder. Apparently quite a bit of murder. This ending was actually quite surprising. I liked the twist and turns that kept you guessing as to what was really going on and who was really involved. I had the suspicion that maybe Phyllis would try to kill Walter as well. After all they were the only two that really knew what when on that night of the murder, since they planned it together. And as Walter stated "somewhere in the back of my head I had known I would have to kill her , for what she knew about me, and because the world isn't big enough for two people once they've got something like that on each other" (86). It almost seemed like murder came second nature for Walter. It never took a lot of thought for him to come up with a plan. Always with an air tight alibi. Keyes surprised me the way he handled everything down to getting Walter and Phyllis out of the country. Keyes had an idea what Walter's true fate was going to be when he said goodbye to Walter and it appeared he was doing him a favor, and Walter thanked him. Keyes stated " you've got no reason to thank me, and I don't think they will catch up with you Huff. I think, well maybe I'm doing you a favor at that. Maybe you'd rather have it that way"(111). When Walter got on the ship and seem to feel comfortable and at peace with what he had done, he had a funny feeling he was not going anywhere. Seeing Phyllis and the conversation they had confirmed it. Phyllis was right at home with the fate that was upon them. She had always had a strange attraction to death and now she would fulfill her love for it. In one of my previous blogs, the title was Murder or Suicide, in this case quite a bit of both.