Double Indemnity (film) - Plot

Plot

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), a successful insurance salesman for Pacific All Risk, returns to his office building in downtown Los Angeles late one night. He is clearly in pain as he sits down at his desk and begins dictating a memo into a Dictaphone machine for colleague Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), a claims adjuster. The dictation becomes the story of the film, which is told in flashback:

Neff first meets the alluring Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) during a routine house call to renew an automobile insurance policy for her husband. A flirtation develops, at least until Phyllis asks how she could take out a policy on her husband's life without his knowing it. Neff realizes she is contemplating murder, and he wants no part of it.

Phyllis pursues Neff to his own home, though, and ups the ante — or at least the voltage — of her flirtation; Neff's gullibility and libido quickly overcome his caution, and he agrees that the two of them, together, will kill her husband. Neff knows all the tricks of his trade, of course, and comes up with a plan in which Phyllis's husband will die an unlikely death, in this case falling from a moving train. The "accidental" nature of his demise will trigger the "double indemnity" clause of the policy, forcing Pacific All Risk to pay the widow twice the normal amount.

The couple carry out their plan. Neff hides in the back seat of the car that Phyllis is driving, and kills Mr. Dietrichson. Neff, escorted by Phyllis, then boards the train, pretending to be her husband on a trip to Palo Alto for a college reunion. He uses a pair of crutches because Dietrichson has recently broken a leg. He also identifies himself as Dietrichson to a passenger from Oregon he encounters after the train pulls out of the station. Neff jumps off, safely, and he and Phyllis place Dietrichson's body on the tracks. Phyllis drives Neff home.

Mr. Norton, the company's chief, believes the death was suicide and is prepared to settle with Phyllis; but, Investigator Keyes dissuades him by quoting statistics indicating the improbability of suicide, to Neff's initial delight.

Keyes does not suspect foul play at first, but the "little man" in his chest keeps nagging that all is not right with this case. He eventually concludes that the Dietrichson woman and some unknown accomplice must be behind the husband's death. He has no reason to be suspicious of Neff, a colleague he has worked with for quite some time and actually views with considerable paternal affection.

Keyes, however, is not Neff's only worry. The victim's daughter, Lola (Jean Heather), comes to him, convinced that stepmother Phyllis is behind her father's death: it seems Lola's mother also died under suspicious circumstances — while Phyllis was her nurse. Neff's concern goes beyond his fear that Lola might blow the whistle on the murder; he is not such a heel that he doesn't begin to care about what might happen to the girl, whose parents have both been murdered.

Keyes, now suspecting Dietrichson was murdered, is prepared to reject the claim and force Mrs. Dietrichson to sue in order to expose her. Neff warns Phyllis not to sue and admits he has been talking to Lola about her past.

Then he learns Phyllis is seeing Lola's boyfriend Nino behind her — and his own — back. Phyllis's brazen unfaithfulness helps wake Neff from his romantic haze and he wants to save himself from his dire involvement with her and with murder. He reasons that the only way out is to make the police think Phyllis and Nino did the murder, which is what the tenacious Keyes now believes anyway.

Neff and Phyllis meet at her house and she tells him she has been seeing Nino only to provoke him into killing the suspicious Lola in a jealous rage. Neff is now wholly disgusted and is about to kill Phyllis when she shoots him first. Badly wounded but still standing, he advances on her, taunting her to shoot again. She does not shoot and he takes the gun from her. She says she never loved him "until a minute ago, when I couldn't fire that second shot." Neff coldly says he does not believe her; she tries hugging him tightly but then pulls away and looks pleadingly at him when she feels the gun pressed against her side. Neff says "Goodbye, baby," then shoots twice and kills her.

Outside, Neff hides in the bushes and intercepts Nino as he approaches, ostensibly to visit his lover, Phyllis. Neff advises him to not enter the house, but to leave and contact "the woman who truly loves you" — Lola. Nino agrees and heads out, avoiding what would have been damning evidence against him if he'd entered the murder house.

Neff, gravely injured, drives to his office, seats himself at the Dictaphone, and starts explaining. Keyes arrives in mid-confession and hears enough to understand everything. Neff tells Keyes he is going to Mexico rather than face a death sentence — but sags to the floor before he can reach the elevator. Keyes comforts him and sadly says, "Walter, you're all washed up." Looking up at Keyes, Neff says the reason Keyes couldn't solve the case was because Neff was "too close" as a fellow employee. Keyes tells Neff he was "closer than that." Neff responds, "I love you too," and puts a cigarette in his mouth. Neff is unable to light the match with his thumb, as he has done throughout the film, so Keyes lights it with his.