Double Indemnity Movie Analysis

In 1943, James M. Cain wrote one of his most selling novella “Double Indemnity”. A year later, Billy Wilder, a movie director, with the help of Raymond Chandler, a screenwriter, took the book and adapted to the big screen while keeping the original title. Eventually, the movie became very popular and nowadays, “Double Indemnity”, widely regarded as a classic, is often cited as paradigmatic film noir and as having set the standard for the films that followed in that genre. The movie adaptation is significantly more effective in creating and building the mood of suspense and making the movie tenser through the use of changes made to the main characters, namely Walter Huff, Barton Keyes and Phyllis Nirdlinger. First of all, the first obvious change made to Walter Huff played by Fred MacMurray, is that in the movie adaption he is called Walter Neff. Although it doesn’t contribute to mood building, it’s the first element readers observe comparing the movie and the book. As a matter of fact, the movie keeps the confessional aspect of the narration in order to stay loyal to the book. Precisely, comparing the opening of the book and the movie, it offers two different moods. The book, in fact, offer foreshadowing, which does create an atmosphere of suspense as Cain writes “That was how I came to this House of Death” (Cain 1). On the other hand, more effectively in building the atmosphere, the film reveals that Walter is a murderer from the beginning. …show more content…
Despite that James M. Cain’s original novella demonstrates a good understanding of crime fiction and femme fatale, Wilder’s version was better due to changes he made to the protagonists: Huff, Keyes, and Phyllis. All in all, the original novella denotes a different approach to the audience that makes it less