Compare and Contrast, Hitch-Hiker

The Double Indemnity and The Hitch-Hiker had their subtle similarities but to me they were very different. The D.I. had a female lead and played very much on the influence of the femme fatale, where as the The H.H. had all male characters and focused more on the power struggle between the captives and the captor. Also, the settings were much much different, in the D.I. we only see a few places around the city, but in the H.H. we see massive landscape scenes in the desert and small towns. Finally, looking at the aspects of the crime, in the D.I. we actually are a party to the murder, and in the H.H. the crimes happen in the beginning and that's really all, there is not actually murder during the length of the movie. These differences may have been a difference in style because of the director being a female, she probably didn't want a female character so that she could avoid the femme fatale character. Also, the male dominant cast actually creates some room for higher physical conflict which doesn't occur except for a few moments when Collins just cant take it anymore.  Finally, we see actually detectives in this film not just a insurance man following a lead, making this an actual detective film.

The similarities were really only in the basics. The format is all the same, lead characters fall into a crime, and the a detective works to solve the crime, before another crime occurs. This is entertaining of course, but the most interesting scenes are the scenes that differ from traditional film noir style that I mentioned before.

Film Noir, Double Indemnity: The Women

The women of this film and of this genre are essential to the plot and are normally right at the center of the action, usually tied directly to the event that the story is based around, in the case of the Double Indemnity, the plot of and murder of Mr. Dietrichson. These women are playing helpless femme fatale characters but for the most part are actually something of the total opposite, cunning and dangerous for the men that associate with them.In this film we are two female characters, Phyllis and her step daughter who hates her. These characters hardly interact with each other but both make contact with our main character and affect the way he acts.

  Phyllis is the wife of Mr. Dietrichson and claims that he is awful to her and the she cannot stand to be married to him anymore, she is beautiful and knows how to use that to her advantage. We also know shes intelligent because before marrying she was a nurse. At the same time, we learn that she may have been responsible for the death of the first wife of Dietrichson because she was the attending nurse when that woman was in the hospital. So with that knowledge we know that this woman has motive and knows how to get what she wants, and if she was responsible for the death of the first wife, will do anything to get it. So this character wants to kill her husband but needs help and not only that but wants some kind of benefit, that's where our insurance salesman just happens to stop by and fall for her beauty. Its all down hill from there, she's won. After all the events unfold we find out that she's not even been faithful the him, she's gotten him to kill the husband while she's been sleeping with man her stepdaughter was in love with. A truly evil woman, she even attempts to kill our main character, who then kills her after he's been shot once.


   The step daughter is another woman in our film, she's the symbol of innocence, the honest voice. She is open about her dislike for Phyllis and even for her own father. She is secretly seeing an older man, who we find out is also seeing her mother, but this girl is not evil. She losses both parents at the hands of the same woman, but she is only a pawn. The lead character only befriends her to attempt to keep her quiet and help ease the pain of what she's going through and what he had done. She is good essentially but I think that had we explored this character more she could have come back to take action against Phyllis in the end. It's the innocent ones that can really surprise you.

M. Theives v. Police

The parallelism in this movie was extremely well thought out and to me very interesting, I loved this film. The way that the story went back and forth between scenes of the police and the thieves having pretty much the exact same conversations about the murderer was fantastic. This theme really showed the depth and the immense thought that went into making the story whole and cohesive. I felt liked that the story was focused more on the hunt of the murderer rather than a background of him or a mystery to find out who he was. I think that this made the story had to place in a certain genre because it wasn't a mystery, or a detective story; it was instead a story of cat and mouse. However, it had two facets to the chase. The first was obviously the hunt for the murderer by both the police and the criminals, but then the second was between the police and the criminals. The both played off each other to accomplish the end game of catching the murderer, which as we know now backfired on the criminals because even though they caught him, they were also betrayed and all captured together at the end of the film. I also loved how the thieves recruited the help of another union of the city, the beggars, while the police reluctantly had to accept that the people of the city were going to try to capture the murderer themselves, as we see the scene where the old man tries to befriend the young girl and get her home safely but is stopped by the mob of citizens. Each main group, the police and the thieves, had their own supporting cast. These pairs really brought the story together and made the hunt of the murderer have so much depth that it was suspenseful, who was going to get to him first?

Sherlock Jr.

1. One gag early on that I believe was probably extremely hilarious back in 1924 was the gag losing the money. The main character wants to buy three dollar candy, but only has two dollars. As he's looking for another dollar someone comes along and has lost one, so he gives one he found to her, then a second woman needs one so he gives it to her. Then finally a brutish character comes along threatens him for his money, then gives the one dollar back, and takes a wallet of the the trash our lead was sweeping and walks away with it. This was humorous and entertaining to watch because our character, had he been doing his job, would have found the money and had all the cash he needed. The camera movement in this whole first part of the movie varies, we close ups to introduce all our characters, as well as staging shots so we understand the surroundings we are in, which changed from a moving shot of the street to, medium closes up with the theater scene.

2.We see an example of a film within a film, self reflexivity at the theater scene. Our character not only displays but cleans a sign for a five part film series. This draws the viewers attention to it immediately and is very effective at doing so. This is a prime example, though very simple. I believe that it was so because this movie was made in 1924 and people weren't trying to make over complicated films at the time.

My name is Josh Hipp, I'm a third year student at UC majoring in Organizational Leadership. I chose this class because it seemed both interesting and I am a great lover of film. Also it fit my Gen Ed requirements. I think this class will be pretty entertaining if the first meeting was a sign of things to come. As far as expectations for this class, I really just expect to learn more about film, while enjoying great in class discussion of movies.

Thanks,

J.