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

Figure 6. Double Indemnity
All does not go to plan, and once the crime is committed, the cunning claims
investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is suspicious of the apparent accident
and an investigation starts with Keyes paying regular visits to Neff’s apartment (fig. 6).
The film ends with Phyllis and Walter shooting at each other. Mortally wounded, Neff
makes his way to his insurance office and records a confession, when he is found by
Keyes. Claiming he will escape to Mexico, Neff falls down before reaching the office lift.
This was the ending director Billy Wilder eventually decided on, although he had shot a
completely different, drearier version in which Keyes watched Walter go to the gas
chamber. One can say that neither was capable of rendering the Gothic horror of the ending
of James M. Cain’s novel, in which Keyes allows the couple to escape on a boat and make
their way to South America, but they soon realise they have no way out. Facing this,
Phyllis suggests that they will jump overboard, mindful that a shark is circling the boat.
After all, the plot, as I said, is undemanding, probably because as James M. Cain
puts it:
The novels I write are honest and plausible. A lot of people come up to me and say,
‘I enjoyed your last murder mystery very much.’ Now, I’ve never written a murder
mystery in my life. Some of the characters in my novels commit murder, but
there’s no mystery involved in them. They do it for sex or money or both. Take
Double Indemnity. There’s nothing mysterious about that. As a matter of fact, it is
so clear and lucid that the insurance companies are now using it as a text. They’re
having their agents read it and they’re distributing copies of it to some of their
clients, just to let them know how thorough their claim department is. I think
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