Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

In this particular case, one can see that studios were mindful of these issues. Billy
Wilder’s adaptation was sent to several studios, but it was only Paramount which showed
the interest and the courage to produce it. The studio was aware that Cain’s novel violated
the Production Code in many aspects, and effectively Breen’s response to the script
emphasised that it showed too many “details of the vicious cold-blooded murder” and that,
globally speaking, “the low tone and sordid flavour” was “thoroughly unacceptable”
(Scheuer 1944:3).
As Cain explained his story, “it is about a married woman who falls in love with
another man, kills her husband, fraudulently attempts to collect insurance, attempts to kill
her lover and gets killed by him for selfish motives.” Yet, it “presents these people with
compassion and understanding.” Just a couple of days later, on September 24, 1943, Breen
agreed that “the basic story seems to meet the requirements of the Production Code.”
However, another couple of changes would have to be taken into account, namely the ones
involving “Phyllis’s erotic entrance and the murder of her husband” while taking him to
the train station:
page 6 The towel must properly cover Phyllis (…) below the knees with no
unacceptable exposure.
page 8 The flimsy house pajamas must be adequate.
page 43 Omit “And listen, don’t handle the policy without putting your gloves on.”
page 47 Omit “to park your south end.”
page 62 Omit details on disposing of the corpse and explicit details of the crime (…)
delete the whole scene/sequence (…) therefore, fade out after they take the
body from the car – let the dialogue explain what they did.
page 74 Delete specific poisons in Keye’s speech sequences.
141
(Biesen 2005:101)
Scenes as the ones described above evoke the “peculiarity of censorship”, as
Christian Metz notes, adding that “things are always managing to get past it”, and that they
operate “like the sluices you sometimes see at the mouths of rivers, where the water gets
through one way or another” (Metz 1982:254). That is basically what happened with
Double Indemnity after Wilder complied with and undertook minor changes to the film, as
a way of manoeuvring around the Code to make sure that the film would get approved. The