Double Indemnity

Walter Neff, an insurance salesman limps over to his colleague’s desk and tells the story of his crimes into the Dictaphone. His wound is bleeding, and he can barely get the words out. The film flashbacks to when Neff first meets Phyllis Dietrichson, the seductive wife of Mr. Dietrichson. Neff is doing a routine house call asking if Mr. Dietrichson would want car insurance, and Mrs. Dietrichson asks if she could take a life insurance policy for her husband without him knowing. This leads to Neff correctly suspecting that she wants to kill her husband and receive double indemnity because it would be “an accident”. He initially does not want any part of it but when their relationship progresses, he wants the husband dead so that he can be with Phyllis. Due to his friendship with the fraud investigator at his insurance firm, Neff concocts the perfect murder plan. He kills Mr. Dietrichson in the car, Walter acts like Mr. Dietrichson while walking into a plane, makes others see a fake version, and then jump off the back of the train safely. Then, Phyllis places the real body onto the train tracks to make it seem like her husband fell off the train accidentally. Since the death was an accident, Neff’s insurance firm is supposed to give the widow double indemnity, in other words, double the amount. However, Keyes eventually questions the murder plot and Phyllis’s reliability. He never suspects Neff due to their friendship. Mr. Dietrichson’s daughter, Lola, is convinced that he was killed by Phyllis because of her mother’s suspicious death when Phyllis was her nurse. He emphasizes with the orphan and slowly wonders what could have happened with her mom and Mrs. Dietrichson. Keyes shows Neff some of the evidence found and he learns that Phyllis is seeing Lola’s boyfriend, Nino. Keyes believes that Phyllis and Nino committed the murder and Neff wants them to take the blame. When Neff and Phyllis meet back at her house, she tells him that she has been seeing Nino in order to make Neff kill him. Walter is about to kill Phyllis, but she shoots him first in the shoulder. She doesn’t shoot him again, so he takes the gun from her and Phyllis tells him that she never loved him. However, she tries to convince Neff that she loves him now, but he doesn’t believe her, so he shoots and kills her. He makes Nino run to Lola and get her back to make sure that Nino doesn’t see Phyllis’s body. Late at night, Neff returns to his insurance firm and tells the entire story into the Dictaphone we saw at the beginning of the movie. Keyes arrives and hears most of the confession while Neff tries to escape to Mexico. He doesn’t even make it to the front door and Keyes calls the authorities.

Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff

Walter Neff is an insurance salesman who tries to persuade clients. He is immediately attracted to Mrs. Dietrichson and when she asks for accident insurance without her husband knowing, Neff knows that she wants to kill him. His love for her compels him to devise a plan to kill Mr. Dietrichson. Knowing how his coworker, Mr. Keyes, investigates insurance fraud, Neff murders Phyllis’s husband and places the body to look like a train accident. His attraction to her causes him to make a series of horrible mistakes. However, in the end, he kills her too and confesses to Mr. Keyes.

Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson

Phyllis Dietrichson hates her husband and her life, despite the luxury they live in. Her stepdaughter, Lola, knows that Phyllis killed Mr. Dietrichson’s past wife in order to marry him. She brutally killed his wife and wants to kill him too. She genuinely loves Neff and together they set up a fake death so they can be together. However, she was seeing Lola’s boyfriend the entire time and Neff kills her after she takes a shot at him. Before he kills her, she tries to manipulate him by saying she loves him.

Edward Robinson as Mr. Keyes

Mr. Keyes is an incredibly intelligent insurance fraud investigator. He is a workplace friend of Neff and they used to trust each other. However, Mr. Keyes sensed something odd about the Dietrichson case and concludes that Mr. Dietrichson did not die by accident. He believes that the death was too perfect to happen in real life. Mr. Keyes figures out most of Neff’s plot to kill Phyllis’s husband and finds Neff while he is confessing in Keyes’s office. Keyes pities Neff and eventually turns him in to the authorities.