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.